A packed meeting of Beeston Community Forum overwhelmingly agreed to send a formal objection to Leeds City Council over the Aspiring Communities’ planning application at its meeting last Thursday (6 November 2014).
The meeting heard that the Forum Secretary, Robert Winfield, had been copied into an email to Councillors about the Save Our Beeston Campaign by a planning officer at the council. It was felt this was inappropriate and any comments should have been sent directly to the campaign.
Save Our Beeston has handed in a letter to the Chief Planning Officer signed by 761 local people objecting to various large-scale developments in the area. These include Aspiring Communities’ plans for the Ice Pak site on Barkly Road and the new Asda store on Old Lane. In the letter they say:
“Residents of Beeston Village area (are) becoming increasingly incensed at the “massive overdevelopment” of our area both by the passive acquiescence and active encouragement of “development after development” by Leeds City Council. Recently project after project has been rolled out without any thought as to the cumulative impact on the health and well being of those of us who have made Beeston Village our home.”
The meeting had previously heard from Sue Watson, the Safety Officer at Leeds United. She explained how they had been required to take over traffic management at games from the Police this season. She apologised for any teething problems but said they now had a good system in operation and could clear Elland Road in 17 minutes.
Forum members quizzed her about on street parking across Beeston on match days. She said she wasn’t aware of the problems and whilst it wasn’t within her remit she would speak to the council about the issue. She also offered to clear rubbish from residents’ gardens on match day, but explained that the Police objected to installing rubbish bins for safety reasons.
Pat McGeever, Chief Executive of Health For All, explained to the meeting that her organisation managed the Beeston Village Community Centre, where the meeting was taking place. Unfortunately the building has a limited life and she was consulting on plans to bid for lottery funding to demolish the existing building and replace it with a two storey community centre. The idea was welcomed by the meeting.
The next meeting of the Forum will be on Thursday 4 December 2014. It will be the Annual General Meeting (AGM) and members were invited to put themselves forward for the committee, which will be elected at that meeting.
This is not the right place for this, it’s a residential place where children are at school traffic is getting to be A REAL PROBLEM. The last time Leeds had a football match I went round the streets near the Barkly’s. What a nightmare we have had two car parks taken from us for the police – can’t knock that, but it’s back in our streets. I’m not against the idea but it cant be there its just so wrong. We need affordable houses for our you people please we need to look after the young ones. They haven’t a hope in hell, but no one seems to care. I do have a teenager myself, come on Beeston sort this out.
I completely agree with the comment above.
This particular site isn’t the correct location for a development of this nature.
Unfortunately there seems to be a desire to paint people opposed to it as being racist, or against integration/diversity and what not, which in the vast majority of cases of the people I have spoken to, is completely untrue.
The building in it’s current form is an eye sore and something needs to be done with the place, however it should be earmarked for bungalows for OAP’s or for affordable housing to allow our young people to purchase their first homes.
I’ve listened to plenty of arguments in favour of the proposal and none of them really stack up. Sports facilities – our council recently closed South Leeds Leisure Centre, Middleton golf course and so on. If local sports teams want to use indoor facilities, I’m sure local schools would be delighted to assist.
This so called plan for a ‘multi faith’ centre is a load of rubbish and is just another way of securing funding and even more resources for the Muslim community.
It’s been put forward by someone who just so happens to be Muslim and if i’m not mistaken, if built, anyone who wishes to visit it must abide by Islamic law!
I’m not racist, small minded or ignorant but isn’t there enough mosques on the other side of the park that could open their doors to other faiths and show them how we can all live in love, peace and harmony without another eyesore having to be built which, without a doubt, will only prevent even more integration?!
Why can’t it just be a community centre that is open to everyone instead of it having to be focused around religion?
The answer is, if it isn’t focused on religion then hardly any Muslims would make use of it because it is them who would fear and physically avoid integration with non-Muslims.
This guy who came up with the plans thinks that if he uses the phrase ‘multi faith’, he is going to get the backing of everyone who can make it happen because nowadays, we seem to be too scared to say no when it comes to religion in case we offend anyone!
Many of my young, new generation Muslim friends agree with me 100% and also agree that it’s stuff like this that encourages the racist, small minded and ignorant people to create nothing but an even bigger divide than there already is between the Muslin and non-Muslim communities.