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Cross Gates sculpture: Does anyone like it?
The Cross Gates gates have definitely divided opinion - as Cross Gates Today website user put it, there's the people who hate them and the people who REALLY hate them. But surely someone, somewhere must like them?
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Reporter Vicki Robinson was sent to find that person.
In 15 years of journalism, it's inevitable you will be asked to do some bum jobs.
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Interviewing glamour model Jordan (enough said), ambushing then Prime Minister Tony Blair about the Harehills riots (don't remember them? neither did he) and being asked to judge the male strip contest A Thong For Europe are just a few that spring to mind.
Actually, the stripping one wasn't so bad, but you get the picture.
On the face of it, then, finding someone from Cross Gates who actually likes the controversial 143,000 civic sculpture doesn't seem so difficult.
But judging by the mailbag of comments Cross Gates Today has received on the subject, I fear this latest task could take a while.
Colleagues, I am going out and I may be some time ...
First stop was the Cross Gates Good Neighbours project. Surely I'll find a charitable bunch here and it'll be game over, job done. Not quite.
Project manager Jenny Sellars told me: "It's caused much merriment but it wasn't what we were expecting at all. I know they are planning to put some lights on it, but why would you want to light that up?
"I haven't met one person who has liked it so far."
And at the bus stop, things were not looking up.
Retired George Moody, 82, of Stocks Rise, said: "They're rubbish. A total waste of money. They should have spent it on old people's homes or given it to St George's Crypt. They are a total embarrassment."
And he had no words of comfort when I told him about my mission.
He said. "You might as well forget it, you won't find anyone."
Margaret Clayton, 60, of Bailey's Lane, has lived in the area almost all her life and must have seen many changes.
So what did she think?
"It's gross!" she said. "I'm disgusted with how much they have spent on it. My daughter's been waiting for a council house for more than three years and they're spending money on that rubbish. It's not right, is it?"
Fair to say she's not a fan, then.
Alan Jones, the owner of cafe SnappySnax, was equally unimpressed.
He said: "We lost a lot of trade when they closed the roads to put them (the gates) on the roundabout. So to have gone through all that and to end up with these is ridiculous.
"It's not art. You could go down to the fields to see those – and at least they work. These are ridiculous."
And then I very nearly struck gold.
Ena Martin, 78, of Oakwood Lane, said: "I don't love it but I don't hate it. It's no worse than that Angel of the North thing."
Promising stuff. But then I revealed how much they cost.
"Well, that's ridiculous, to spend all that money on it. No they shouldn't have done that. I've gone right off it!"
So close, but yet so far.
Butcher Kevin Dyson was no help either.
The 64 year-old, from RP Setchfield's, said: "140,000 on that – it's monstrous isn't it.
"You'll never find anyone who likes it. No one who has come in the shop has had a good word for it."
Nicola Simpson, 32, of York Road, said: "I know people call some strange things art , but these gates really take the biscuit. They're terrible."
Darren Clark, 31, and his wife Joanna, 37, of Sandway, Cross Gates, were no fans either.
Joanna said: "They're an eyesore, just stuck there in the middle of the roundabout."
Darren added: "The money could have been spent much better in the community."
So that was the end of that, then. There really wasn't anyone in Cross Gates who liked the sculpture.
Putting my notebook away, I turned to leave.
But just as I was about to head back to the office with my tail between my legs, along came salvation in the shape of
Joshua Turton – a small boy with a gap-toothed grin.
"I like them," he said.
"They're blue – that's my favourite colour."
So there you go. They might have cost 143,000 and sparked a public outcry, but they put a smile on the face of a five-and-a-half year-old boy.
And that's got to be money well spent. Hasn't it?
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Weather for Leeds
Tuesday 22 May 2012
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