Hunslet and Riverside Labour Labour values in action
July 2021 Newsletter
Welcome to this month’s Hunslet and Riverside Rose, your monthly e-newsletter from us as your three ward Councillors representing the areas of Leeds City Centre, Hunslet, Hunslet Carr, and Beeston Hill.
Contents
Use the links below to browse the sections of our e-newsletter and use the return to contents links at the end of each section to return here.Councillor Area Walks Return
Councillor area walks have continued this month with more of the ward covered. These walks are raising hundreds of small issues such as footway repairs, blocked gullies (highways drains), footpath vegetation obstructions and many others – the small issues that bug people but don’t typically get reported.We really want to encourage residents to use the council self-service service website at https://services.leeds.gov.uk/ or to email us. The sooner we know about problems, the sooner we can try and fix them.
One of the key successes from these have been the clearance of a significant number of blocked gullies – mainly on Beeston Hill and in the Leeds Homes estates. This has resulted in a significant reduction of flooding risks for local residents, and it will help keep footways clear by allowing silt and soil to run into the drainage network rather than remain on the path, helping prevents weeds growing.
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Dewsbury Road Improvements
The first £19,000 of a dedicated £30,500 budget is to be spent on amenity improvements to the shopping district between Dewsbury Road Community Hub and Library and Hunslet Fire Station from a fund, known as the Town and District Two, has been allocated.Originally funding amounted to over £60,000 but this was reduced to £30,500 (along with similar projects across Leeds) to help the Council balance its books in light of additional core government grant reductions and the impact of the pandemic on the Council’s budget for 2021/2022.
We have approved:
- the purchase of a pram shelter and bollards for Dewsbury Road Community Hub and Library
- the commissioning of ten communication boxes to be turned into local artwork by Leeds Street Gallery – with a public consultation on what should be there to start soon
- allocated funding for at least three new street benches to allow for resting stop
- mature tree planning and fencing of the grassed area in front of Leeds Motor Sales
This follows the deployment of 20 new or replacement litter bins in late 2019 which came from the funding prior to it being reduced and new projects frozen during the initial pandemic. Councillors have also been able to secure a number of cycle parking hoops from the Connecting Leeds 3 budget, which will be allocated near to the shops to give cyclists the option of secure parking while they shop.
More funding will be need for biodiversity improvement such as tree and rain garden planters to soften up the frontage of the shopping area and reduce flood risks, and signage improvements.
Some of these and others may come from the remaining £11,000 budget. We are also keen to work with residential property owners on Dewsbury Road to tidy up some gardens fronting the shopping area which are poorly kept.
Finally, we are supporting Dewsbury Road Town Team – the lobby group for local businesses, to resume meeting to ensure businesses have a voice in the future of the area. The group stopped meetings during the pandemic.
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“Cllr Paul Wray, Cllr Elizabeth Nash and I had big plans for the original fund – this including recommissioning street lampposts to allow for seasonal lights to be installed for Christmas etc. but the current fund simply won’t cover all of these costs and others. But we will continue to fund some smaller improvements from what is left. We are actively looking for other funding to make the bigger changes we know are needed.” Cllr Mohammed Iqbal
New Woodland Creation
As part of the council's climate and biodiversity emergency declaration ambitions, our ambition to improve our green and wilderness spaces in the ward took a further step this month due to a meeting with the Council's Woodland Creation Team to discuss new sites for possible woodland planting.These included:
- land off of Longroyd Terrace
- several areas of underutilised grass area on lower Beeston Hill off Lady Pit Lane
- additional mature tree planting to Pepper Road Park, Hunslet Lake Park in Hunslet and Brickfields Park on Beeston Hill
These sites will now be checked for utilities to make sure they are suitable for tree planting and if so, subject to approval and local consultation, these will be planted between August and March which is the prime tree planting season.
We continue to be committed to increasing urban tree coverage and other wilding projects to help improve not just local biodiversity but also to reap the rewards of the improvements in the well-being to produce.
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MICE Grants
We have approved the following small grants:- Hunslet TARA
- Kurdish House Leeds
- Middleton Railway
- Leeds Samaritans
- Hunslet Tenants and Residents Association
- LBGTQ+ Fete
- Maltings Residents Groups
- Friends of the Aire
Wellbeing Grants
We have approved the following wellbeing grants:- Hunslet Carr Christmas Lights and Decorations
- Blue Grit Bin Refills (Part of the ward Grit Bin Fund)
- Hunslet Community Gala
- Beeston Festival
- Hunslet Club Summer Gala
- St. Luke’s Local Environmental Project
- Hunslet Carr Wheel Historical and Memorial Signs
Street Advice and Engagement Restarted
Last month we began our proactive Street Advice and Engagement work again – starting in the Hunslet Green area. It was great to speak to residents about what's important to them and their local area and how they feel we can help to improve them.After such a long period of not being able to do this kind of work, it was great to be back out picking up local issues that we can takeaway and have resolved.
It takes around six months to visit every area like this but we are keen to do as much as we can, as we used to do before the pandemic.
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New Litter Picking Groups
We are launching a number of regular community litter picking events to support the growth of community led action on litter in Hunslet Carr and on Beeston Hill.We have setup two new Facebook Groups to help residents connect and get involved: Beeston Hill Wombles and Hunslet Carr Wombles. Their aim is to support community action to start on a regular basis, grow the community of volunteer litter picks in each area, connect them together, and then pass over the group to the volunteers to run – moving the Council back to a more supportive role.
Hunslet Tenants and Residents Association also conduct a weekly litter pick every Tuesday at 10:00, meeting at the Church of the Nazarene Lupton Street.
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“The growth of the Litter Free Leeds movement across the city has been remarkable but we have noticed some areas of our ward are not seeing residents get involved despite us knowing this is a real issue they are passionate about. We have therefore decided to give a helping hand to get things going.” Cllr Elizabeth Nash
Small Electrical Recycling Bins for Hunslet
It is great news that a new recycling bank for small electric items (toasters, kettles etc), was installed alongside the two exiting Glass Banks in the Hunslet Community Hub and Library Carpark.We are lobbying for more WEEE’s to be installed across the ward as they became available to help improve recycling rates. But we also stress the good practice of residents donating unwanted working items (big or small) before looking to dispose of them. You can find more information about ways to do this at www.leeds.gov.uk/residents/bins-and-recycling/get-rid-of-unwanted-items
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“We know there is a demand for more recycling of specialist smaller electrical items which cannot be donated. We have asked for a WEEE in Hunslet ever since the previous bank was removed from the Penny Hill Centre carpark at the request of the centres managers. Therefore, we are really happy one will now be reinstalled in Hunslet an again.” Cllr Mohammed Iqbal
Thank you for reading
This is just a small amount of the work we’ve done this month and doesn’t even cover the individual casework all three of us do that we receive each month – which is normally in the high hundreds each, the local engagement with community, the projects we attend, the support we give to schools as governors, and as trustees of charities, or the work we do as part of our citywide duties on planning, policing, licensing and much more.We are here to serve but, if we don’t know, we can’t help. So please, if you need us – contact us.
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Contact us
Do you have an idea about how to solve a local problem or a project idea to help improve the community – let us know using the contact form below and we could help make it a reality. You know your communities best and we want to make sure your local knowledge is used to help make it better for everyone.