Labour councillors want shot of us – reply to the consultation and don’t lose your representation!

As you probably know, we’ve been working with our Labour councillors to try and save more of the green space we use locally. Recently, in a planning update meeting, they’ve been pretty helpful.

So it’s a bit of a surprise that they’ve not let us know that they intend to move us away from their representation to the Conservative-run Harewood ward, who are very much in favour of as much development as possible happening here. They’re also moving the Northern Quadrant into the Harewood ward, even though that development would be adjacent to Cross Gates and Whinmoor housing and divided from the Harewood ward by a dual carriageway.

Spot the difference – consultation running now

A consultation is running over the holiday period. Let the boundary commission know that our concerns around semi-urbanised Red Hall are not the same concerns as the millionaires in the countryside of Scarcroft, and that gerrymandering to make residents’ concerns less represented by leaving us to the minority party is not acceptable.

You’ll have less influence over what happens in with development in this area if you’re represented by minority Conservative councillors in Harewood.

Points to make

Here are some points you might want to make, and they’ll be in our submission:

• We have been working closely with Labour councillors on our local green space/development issues
• The community centre in which we meet would be separated from us by the A58, and residents west of the A58 would no longer be able to attend the Whinmoor community forum, which genuinely does represent our local concerns
• One of the councillors for Harewood, is very much in support of the “Leeds stops here” line of thinking, and lives to the north of the proposed ELOR dual carriageway boundary, whose concerns are very different from – and some would say diametrically opposed to – ours around Red Hall
• We would be separated completely from our “new” ward by that dual carriageway
• We will be in a Conservative ward but a Labour constituency
• It will change ward-based reports with respect to green space provision and distort the local picture – which is one of deficiency – by presenting an overly positive picture of green space which is in reality located miles to the north of us on the other side of that dual carriageway
• Remaining Cross Gates and Whinmoor residents’ ability to comment on and influence the massive development on their doorstep will be drastically reduced