Leeds statue review ‘was a waste of time’, claims senior Tory

Deputy leader of the authority’s opposition Conservative group Coun Alan Lamb told a meeting that a review, which aimed to look at whether any statues or monuments in the city had connections with the slave trade, was a ‘knee-jerk reaction’ by Leeds City Council.

Supporters of the report, however, said it showed the city took its culture seriously, and was needed.

The review was commissioned by Leeds City Council following Black Lives Matter protests and the toppling of a statue of Edward Colston, a slave trader, in Bristol.

The review, carried out by retired Leeds City councillor Alison Lowe, found there were no historical figures connected with the slave trade, although it did claim statues in the city were “rarely diverse and inclusive”.

It did not recommend any removals of statues, and found there was “no groundswell” of support to do so, with only around 10 percent of those consulted requesting the council pulled down statues in the district.

Coun Lamb told a meeting of Leeds City council’s executive board: “I have to congratulate (Alderwoman Lowe) for making such a fist of what would, in sporting terms, be described as a ‘hospital pass’ from the leader of the council.

“This shows the folly of knee-jerk reactions to things – if you look at the report written by council officers, my summation would be that never in the history of this council have so many words been used to avoid getting to the point.

“When people were asked their view on this, nobody was really interested. That was the overwhelming response.

“We should do everything we can to celebrate people from all communities in Leeds, but you can’t help escaping the conclusion that the vast majority of the people in this city would come to, which is that this was a complete waste of time and money.”

During a pubic consultation part of the investigation, the council received 813 responses. It found there was no strong support for removing statues with only around 10 percent of respondents supporting removal or whole-scale review.

Responding to Coun Lamb, Coun Stewart Golton (Lib Dem) said: “Just because people have a reasonable attitude doesn’t show they had a lack of interest – they did have an interest.

“Coun Lamb has talked about how this has been a waste of time and money – but we were going to be a city of culture in 2023 – this kind of exercise is key to us demonstrating that we take culture seriously – statuary is all about celebrating issues or individuals.

“As we look forward, we need to look back to know how we might do things differently in the future. That is the whole point of museums, and I’m assuming Coun Lamb doesn’t think museums are a waste of time.”

Alderwoman Lowe, who produced the report on a voluntary basis, said a number of experts gave their time for free in helping her research and produce the report.

Introducing her report, she said: “We wanted to understand the statues we felt were contentious – that focussed on Queen Victoria, Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington.

“We did digging into their histories and their potential questionable sides of their stories. We came to a conclusion that even though there were questions to be answered, we did not have a statue of the standard of Edward Colston.

“Only three per cent of all respondents wanted to remove a specific statue and only 10 per cent wanted any change to the current statutory or other action.

“People felt the stories of the people represented in statue form needed to be updated and modernised, and we needed a 21st century lens on those people and their stories.

“We felt there were huge numbers of brilliant people in Leeds who also needed to be recognised.

“I am a historian and it reminded me of how much I loved history, but it also reminded me history has its dark side and we need to keep revisiting that history so we can make sense of it.”

Reflecting on the conditions which led to the review in the summer, Leader of Leeds City Council Judith Blake (Lab) said: “It was an extraordinarily tense time, as we have reflected on. Your calm approach and reputation did us a great service, and that it was purely voluntary on your behalf and of the reference board.”