This article first appeared on The Leeds Guardian, the new civic blog covering Council, health, transport and other corporate issues in Leeds.
- Councillors to hear early plans to tackle wind problems
- Owners want to put up four 66ft long baffles across Water Lane
- No decision, just feedback and questioning
Early plans to protect people from dangerous winds around Bridgewater Place are set to go before councillors next week.
No decision will be made at a city plans panel meeting next Thursday, where councillors will have a chance to ask questions, raise issues, seek clarification and comment on what is known as a pre-application report. The report sets out initial proposals prior to a full planning application being submitted.
Is it just me or is this being over-played a bit?
Of course, the death of the man killed when a van/lorry blew over in the wind a few years ago is very tragic and reasonable steps should be taken to prevent a recurrence – ensuring the developer pays for them.
In the meantime I gather the roads around Bridgewater Place will be closed if the wind gusts above 45MPH. On the recent occasion when this happened over the Christmas holiday period gridlock occurred and the winds weren’t particularly bad.
There were no early warning signs which could have helped traffic flow. There were no traffic officers helping with traffic. There were no diversion signs. Why not just ban vehicles over a certain size?
Coming from someone who works near this building and has to walk past it twice every day – not it is not being over-played. I worked with Dr Slaney and we battled with the wind at Water Lane ever since this building was built. It is extremely dangerous to walk past this building in high winds – whether there is traffic on the road or not. People have been blown over, into railings and have suffered injuries sucha s fractured skulls, and ruptured internal organs. Something needs to be done urgently – 7 years too late!