YEP Letters: August 23

Pavements spoiled by dog fouling

R Kimble, Leeds

I IDENTIFY strongly with the letter (YEP August 21) about dog mess. I have trodden in two piles of it in the past few weeks, not on the pavement (which is, admittedly, frequently spoiled by numerous piles of the stuff) but in my garden.

Some owners let dogs run free with no consideration. In fact, the lack of consideration on many levels is the worst I’ve ever encountered in the three cities I’ve lived in, including London where this is absolutely not tolerated. On both occasions the pile was on my lawn and I walked it into the house.

I should not have to look down as I walk round my garden, anymore than I should have to constantly look downward, not ahead, on the pavements.

It’s not the fault of the council if there’s dog mess everywhere, it’s the fault of the owners.

South Bank masterplan: your views

The masterplan for the rejuvenation of Leeds’ South Bank – including the remodelled Leeds Station – has been formally adopted by Leeds City Council planners. The plan will now form a blueprint for all key developments in the area after it was shaped by a public consultation which attracted more than 32k individual responses. The ‘Supplementary Planning Document’ has been put together by Leeds City Council in collaboration with landowners stakeholders and local business and sets out a clear vision for the South Bank to be a “mixed use neighbourhood” with new public spaces and a new city park with public transport links and the waterfront and a “world-class train station” and its heart. We asked YEP readers for their views and here’s what some of them said on social media..

Paul McKenna

Don’t care where money comes from there are more important issues than the south bank. If they have that much money as a democratic society, which I thought we were, we should have had a vote to say where it goes.

Charlotte Clarke

£500 million? What about the potholes? No doubt there are far more important things to spend that dosh on.

Richard Lodge

Date change exercise from 2013 - just cross out the 13 and put 18 - no-one will notice. This exact same plan was published about five years ago and still nothing has happened apart from the “education quarter”, still no infrastructure investment.

Amanda Jayne Turpin

South bank. Just made up by the council.

Elaine Benson

Will that be with or without the red light area?

Craig Brannan

more empty flats to go with all the other empty overpriced flats.

Mark Egan

Profit for a few select individuals, suburbs keep getting worse

Protesters gathered in Holbeck this week to call for an end to what has been dubbed Britain’s first legal red light zone. More than a dozen residents with placards turned out to highlight their anger about the ‘managed approach’ to street sex work in that area of Leeds. Introduced by community safety partnership Safer Leeds in October 2014 it allows sex workers to operate in parts of Holbeck during certain hours with the aim of getting more of the women to engage with support services. But residents have become increasingly vocal about the negative impact on surrounding streets and regular breaches of the scheme’s rules. We asked YEP readers for their views and here’s what some of them said on social media..

Kim Grinstead

I’m a resident fighting to get the managed zone shut down for our sakes and our kids.

Some of the prostitutes have been housed in the area, some travel from far and wide each day but the fact remains they should only be working 8pm-6am in the zone not on our streets 24 hours a day. We should not be seeing women in bras walking round trying to flag down cars at 4pm or women drunk or high staggering in between traffic at 11am or the girls walking up and down top moor side at 8.30am or 3.30pm at school time.

We should not have them having sex in our bin yards, our door steps and our play areas. We should not have them leave their dirty condoms, their needles and drug paraphernalia in our children’s school playgrounds, our play areas, our streets.

Darren Wormald

Amazing in the UK this can be deemed a taboo, this is far too seedy.

In Amsterdam it takes in millions in tourism and keeps everyone safe into the bargain. Men want to pay for sex women want to charge for sex, where’s the problem? Open some proper places. Problem solved.

Amanda Jayne Turpin

So you think none of the prostitutes in Amsterdam aren’t trafficked girls who are there willingly?

Claire Dennison

These girls are out morning and afternoon, it’s not nice having to commute to work past them seeing them trying to flag cars/vans down and in front of school kids.

Beverly Golesworthy

I LIVE in Morley but our buses go through there sometimes - not that many main routes out of the place and I feel sorry for ordinary girls trying to go about their business without being pestered, I’d be scared to go out at night.

Jackie Carr

Should be legalised and them give some sort of building to use, far safer for the ‘girls’

Brendon Bremner Sullivan

It won’t end will it? Just go somewhere else. It’s time we had a real debate about prostitution and the sex industry in the UK.

Jenni Brown

It’s very sad that some women have to resort to this to feed habits, or to just feed themselves.

Many of these women will have a back story that involves abuse or neglect and feel that they have no worth.

It’s a shame that there isn’t more support out there, for them to get the help that they need.