Make your voice heard

May 6 is just around the corner – if you are voting by postal vote or voting on the day make sure that you vote for the candidate that will best represent our local community. ???

To help you with that decision – please check out the letter below, which explains why voting for Brandon, as your local Liberal Democrat candidate, will ensure that your voice will finally be heard in Headingley & Hyde Park. ???

Dear friend,

On 6 May 2021, you have the chance to change Headingley & Hyde Park for the better.

As your Liberal Democrat candidate, I want to fight for our community as your representative on Leeds City Council. I am committed to ensuring that Headingley & Hyde Park is:

GREENER by opposing the expansion of Leeds Bradford Airport in the face of a climate emergency, pushing for better, greener public transport services and introducing kerbside glass and food waste collections.

CLEANER by ensuring that our bins are collected on time, fly-tipping is cleared efficiently, and graffiti is removed.

SAFER for women to walk the streets freely without fear by pushing for the Council to invest in better street lighting and to retain funding for our hard-working Police Community Support Officers.

More of the same or time for change?

For nearly 10 years under Labour, the residents of Headingley and Hyde Park have seen rubbish piling up, graffiti getting out of control, and noise nuisance going untackled.

The Liberal Democrats in Leeds have a strong record of opposing the Labour-run council in the chamber.

By voting Liberal Democrat on 6 May, you can send a strong message to Labour that our community deserves better.

With best wishes,

Brandon Ashford

PS: Remember if you are using a postal vote, you can cast it as soon as you receive your ballot.

Earth Day 2021

This Earth Day, we want to take the opportunity to reflect on how Brandon and your local Liberal Democrats are working to help protect the environment during this climate emergency:

1. Protecting our green spaces such as Woodhouse Moor to keep them clean, green, and safe for everyone.

2. Continuing to oppose the expansion of Leeds-Bradford airport.

3. Scrapping the DIY tax to help stop fly-tipping.

4. Adopting kerbside glass recycling across Leeds.

In the local elections: a vote for Brandon is a vote for a cleaner, greener, and safer Headingley & Hyde Park.

Leeds Bradford airport expansion put on hold

It is good news to hear that the expansion of Leeds Bradford airport has been put on hold for now. We are in a climate emergency and expanding the airport risks damaging our environment even more. Not to mention the additional noise pollution that will happen over our community due to the increase in flight numbers.

The Labour council are willing to sacrifice our environment and the peace and quiet of those living under the flight path – the Liberal Democrats are not!

We will continue to oppose the expansion of the airport and call on all parties on Leeds City Council to fully stand with us.

Hyde Park junction

Following some great conversations with residents yesterday, Brandon has checked up on the ongoing works at Hyde Park junction and confirmed that the pedestrian crossings remain out of action. This has been taken up with the Council as a matter requiring an urgent fix.

This is a very busy junction for both pedestrians and vehicles. People should not have to gamble with their safety to cross this road. Temporary crossing measures can easily be put in place to ensure that the lives of pedestrians are not at risk, whilst works are ongoing.

Planters in disrepair

Broken, littered, forgotten about – this is what happens when schemes are introduced without consulting local residents.

Brandon has been out and about in Hyde Park today and found many of the low traffic neighbourhood scheme planters in a very poor state of repair. He has reported these issues to Leeds City Council to arrange for them to be urgently repaired and leftover street barriers to be removed.

These problems could have avoided if the Labour council had consulted with local residents to find a better way for introducing the low traffic neighbourhood scheme and one which they supported, rather than springing it on them with ineffective measures like they have.

Leeds City Council Budget Day

Yesterday was Budget Day on Leeds City Council. The Liberal Democrat group brought a range of budget amendments to the table, putting a particular emphasis on the need to tackle climate change. Some of the key Liberal Democrat proposals were:

  • Set up a £3 million Leeds Climate Emergency Fund for citizen schemes to create a carbon neutral city
  • Introduce a city wide food waste collection service, & build an anaerobic digester to recycle more & use that waste to power Council vehicles.
  • End charges for replacement bins, bulky waste collection and DIY waste tax at Council tips to stop penalising people who want to get rid of waste responsibly.
  • Introduce the rollout of doorstep glass collection, as bottle banks exclude those without a car and the disabled.
  • Invest in a new children’s residential care home so less of our children are placed in care outside their home city.
  • Look into creating an employee owned foster care agency to rely less on expensive profit-motivated private sector agencies.
  • Look into a city centre workplace charging levy to fund public transport improvements
  • End car parking charges in Otley town centre to promote a free parking guarantee for all our district centres for better access to local shops.
  • Respond to local flooding risks posed by the city’s 1500 blocked gulleys and reduce the current 15 year backlog on gulley clearance by doubling the size of the response team.
  • Increase the city’s Forestry Team to tackle the treeworks backlog, and better prepare for massive tree planting in response to carbon reduction.
  • Employ an extra 9 civil enforcement officers dedicated to outer areas in response to the citywide rise in dog fouling and illegal parking.
  • Increase access to electric vehicles for households without driveways by installing 100 residential street charging points.
  • Enabling lower income households to access electric vehicles through piloting a community care share scheme.
  • Dedicate funding to look at introducing new train stations at Methley and Woodside Quarry to relieve pressure on nearby stations.
  • Transform community teams to better accommodate community social and cultural activity to reduce isolation and stimulate local economies.

We were disappointed to see Leeds’ Green councillors joining with the Labour and Tory parties to vote down our proposed Climate Change Fund.

April 2019 Focus leaflet

We have been delivering our latest Focus leaflet in Headingley and Hyde Park. Our candidate, Penny Goodman, has lived in Headingley for twelve years and is campaigning for a better, cleaner local environment.

Penny says:

Dear resident,

On May 2nd our area will elect a Councillor and I’m the Lib Dem candidate for this election.

I live in Headingley, so I care passionately about local issues as they affect me too!

If I’m elected, I am determined to push for real action to tackle congestion. The Labour Council are spending millions of pounds ripping up Lawnswood roundabout and replacing it with an American-style intersection. I think the money would be more wisely invested sorting out our roads and improving public transport.

I want to see more street sweeping and greater enforcement action to tackle fly tipping and littering. I think it’s really important that our area
looks nice.

I’m a committed environmentalist, which is why I want to see more done by the Council to tackle climate change. I also want to see increased recycling services. The Lib Dems on Leeds City Council tried to get the Council to introduce kerbside food waste and glass recycling collection, like every major UK city, but Labour blocked it. I’ll continue to campaign for this to happen.

If I am elected I will be an independently-minded strong campaigning voice for our area. I hope you will support me on May 2nd.

Penny

Leeds City Council elections

Elections to Leeds city council are taking place on Thursday May 2nd. Today is the deadline for registering to vote in them, and if you haven’t done so already you can register to vote here.

Our candidate for Headingley and Hyde Park is Penny Goodman. Penny lives locally on Grove Lane, and is an academic who teaches Roman history at the University of Leeds.

Penny is calling for household glass recycling, action against fly-tipping and better transport across the city. She is a committed environmentalist, who wants to make it easy for everyone to help tackle climate change through easier recycling and better public transport.

She also strongly believes that Britain is better off remaining in the EU – not least because climate change is a shared problem which can best be tackled by working together.

Penny Goodman in Headingley

Leeds Liberal Democrats 2018 election manifesto

Today marks two weeks to the Leeds City Council elections for 2018. These are particularly important elections, because we are electing the whole of Leeds city council from scratch following changes to some ward boundaries. Across the city, everyone will have three votes each to select three new councillors for the ward they live in.

The Leeds Liberal Democrats have produced a fully-costed manifesto for this year’s elections, created through consultation with our local members, residents and city councillors. It is packed full of exciting and practical policies such as:

  • Citywide food waste and glass collection
  • Saving money and reducing pollution by powering city vehicles with biogas
  • A council-owned housing company building affordable homes for sale and rent
  • Addressing declining educational results amongst our most disadvantaged children
  • Employing dementia-supporting Admiral nurses

If you would like to read the manifesto in full, you can do that right here! Pictures of all the pages are included below, or you can download a pdf copy for yourself.

Bus changes for February

First Bus Leeds have posted details of some changes to local bus services which will come into effect on Saturday 18 February. For most Headingley and Hyde Park buses this simply means revised timetables to improve punctuality, but the following two services will have more substantial changes:

Number 1: Some additional University Term Time evening short journeys will run from Monday – Saturday between Leeds and West Park, as service 1A.

Number 56: Journeys towards Moor Grange (i.e. out of town) will be re-routed along Hyde Park Road and Victoria Road rather than Royal Park Road, Queen’s Road and Chestnut Avenue, to avoid problems with parked vehicles.

The changes to the number 56 route are particularly important for people living along Royal Park Road, Queen’s Road and Chestnut Avenue who have been used to being able to get the bus to these areas from town. The new route means that the bus will no longer be going directly along these streets. Please share this post if you have friends living in this area, to make sure that they are aware of the changes.

You can see full details of the changes at the First Leeds website.