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11th hour plea for Woodhouse Moor
It is now over five months since Leeds City Council launched its plan to concrete part of Woodhouse Moor to create a barbecue area.
This would install 40 large concrete blocks in the Moor at a cost of 20,000 and scrap the bylaw banning fires in a section of the park right next to the children's playground and nearest people's homes.
We are grateful to the YEP for its fair and balanced airing of the issues. However we now understand that the council is about to announce its decision. We understand many YEP readers must wonder what all the fuss is about. It's very simple really. We love our park.
Woodhouse Moor, the city's first public park, is a gift that one generation passes on to another. As the community most deprived of greenspace in Leeds we need a way to share this space with everyone. The Moor should be safe for dog walkers, joggers, picnickers, allotment holders, team sports, wildlife and young mums with push-chairs. It should not be an area where the selfish minority hold sway.
The scale of the vandalism we have witnessed both this summer and last is ruining the park for everyone. The litter, destroyed benches and picnic tables, bonfires, branch ripping, allotment raiding, drug taking, smashed glass, burned metal, noise, graffiti and tons and tons of dumped rubbish are not sustainable. We have no confidence in the council's consultation exercise which has been a farce from the beginning.
We therefore ask the Council at the eleventh hour to safeguard this green treasure for all and not to appease vandalism with 20,000 of concrete and a turned blind eye.
Martin Staniforth, Amit Roy, Sue Buckle, Philip Walshaw, Bill McKinnon, North Hyde Park Neighbourhood Association, Unity Day, South Headingley Community Association, Marlborough Residents' Association, Friends of Woodhouse Moor
Please say 'No' to Barbecue areas on Woodhouse Moor.
Any Lib Dem councillor who thinks even students are in favour of this are sadly mistaken.
The issue seems to have split along party lines with Labour and most Conservatives supporting the local population who are opposed to this, and the Lib Dems trying to force through this measure against the volume of opposition.
It will certainly not be a vote winner for the Lib Dems – even students are not in favour of it, and if it goes ahead we will certainly ensure that students and others realise who have done this to them.
The response from students is three fold.
1. We don't use Woodhouse Moor but think it is a bad thing anyway (most students don't realise that the real name of the park they call 'Hyde Park' is Woodhouse Moor – and they do use and love 'Hyde Park').
2. No-one will use the barbecue areas – the stones will get smelly and fly ridden.
3. Students want to spread out across the park, not be herded into one small area.
It is quite clear that if this does go ahead, it will not solve the problem of barbecues in other areas of the Moor but will simply render a substantial portion of the Moor unusable and visually very unsightly (as well as adding to Leeds's carbon footprint) by endorsing barbecues which are currently illegal, and replacing grass with environmentally undesirable concrete blocks – a householder who wanted to do this to park their car would be prevented from doing so by new legislation but it seems that Leeds Council thinks it is immune to this ruling.
The police are on record as saying they only need to be asked, to help to enforce the 'no barbecues' law on Woodhouse Moor. This is the real solution to the problem.
There is a massive amount of anger about this issue, with more to come if the 1m square blocks are actually installed in our precious, small, green space.
Janet A Bailey, Ash Grove, Leeds
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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