When we met Councillor Gruen in August recently, we said we would post a more detailed analysis on the effect of house-building on our ward’s green space deficit.

As we’ve previously said when we took our deputation to council, Crossgates and Whinmoor ward is deficient in five out of six typologies of green space. Working from a 2011 document¹ detailing green space provision for each ward in Leeds, we estimate the effect on greenspace provision due to population growth in the following scenarios:

1. Baseline – when the provision document was produced
2. Now – after Grimes Dyke (previously recorded as amenity space) was built out
3. Northern Quadrant – after the Northern Quadrant allocation east of the A58 has been built out
4. ELE – after the whole East Leeds Extension is built out
5. All allocations – after all draft allocations in the ward are built out

The results² show the following decline (with the exception of allotments, because our ward has none):

There are two green lines for playing provision – the upper (solid) green line is the decline without the loss of four playing fields. The lower (dotted) green line is with the loss of all but 2 of the space for the 6 fields the land currently has, based on the council’s assertion that “at least two playing pitches will be retained”.

The quantity of playing provision in this ward is currently ~17% below what Core Strategy Policy G3³ calls for. If we lose 4 playing pitches and all current draft allocations are built out, we’ll be ~55% lower than the level of provision G3 calls for.

Residents themselves don’t necessarily always need playing provision exactly – we just need versatile spaces to exercise, relax, and manage our general health. This deficit in itself would not be so bad, but we are already ~60% in deficit for parks and gardens (dropping to ~70% after building). In turn, this too wouldn’t be so bad, given that the ward currently enjoys a ~60% surplus in amenity green space (dropping to ~20% after building), but sadly none of that space is walkably close to the residents the fields serve. These fields serve triple duty: amenity greenspace, playing provision, and parks and gardens.

Assumptions used in the production of this document can be found on the last page of the results.

Illustration: Andrzej Krause

Leeds makes much of being a child-friendly city. But it, like many other places in the UK, ignores them completely when it comes to planning communities. George Monbiot, writing for the Guardian:

“Given all that we know about the physical and psychological impacts of this confinement, you would expect the authorities to ensure that the remaining 10% of their diminished range is designed to draw children out of their homes. Yet almost everywhere they are designed out. Housing estates are built on the playing fields and rough patches children used to inhabit, and offer almost nothing in return.”

Too long? Didn’t read? Skip to the key points

The full text of the deputation’s speech: –

My Lord Mayor and fellow Councillors, good afternoon. I am Russell Garner, chair of the Friends of Red Hall Playing Fields, and I am accompanied here by Katherine Fenton, Secretary. We are regular users of Red Hall Playing Fields, a Leeds asset in public hands since 1937 and much used and loved both for organised sport and general recreation.

We care deeply about Red Hall Playing Fields. This green open space plays a major part in the life of our community – and with thousands of homes to be built nearby at Red Hall and in the Northern Quadrant, it will play an ever more important role. It unites the community, promoting mental and physical health and well-being. It provides a safe environment for young and old alike, in the attractive heritage setting of the grade II listed Red Hall House. One of our group has in the past year used it to manage his own health, losing four-and-a-half stones in weight. This is in no small part due to the fields being a beautiful, tranquil, and extensive open space in which to exercise.

The geographic position of Red Hall – to the north of Roundhay Park, to the west of the Wetherby Road – means that it forms part of the so-called “green wedge” out of Leeds from Oakwood Clock through to Shadwell and the countryside beyond. Other sites near to Red Hall, within this green wedge, have been safeguarded from development – despite the fact that they are not publicly accessible. But Red Hall Playing Fields present an anomaly – one that has not been recognised as such in the Site Allocations Plan. The fields are in the top three least sustainable sites allocated for housing using the planning department’s sustainability appraisal scores, and in the top two if apparent errors in the scoring were to be acknowledged.

Crossgates and Whinmoor ward is deficient in quantity in five out of six types of green space¹, with playing provision noted as a particular area of shortfall against Core Strategy policy G3. 80% of the 81 green sites in the East Leeds area fail to meet the required quality score, which council officers say indicates “an issue of substandard greenspace provision in the East area across all typologies²”. In our part of the ward this shortage will be more acutely felt with the building of several thousand houses and a dual carriageway. This will cut residents off from the countryside while dramatically reducing the fields from 11 hectares to just 3. Despite this planned reduction and their removal from greenspace allocation, to our surprise the fields are still to be considered in greenspace surplus and deficit analysis.

Today we are seeking the following outcomes:

1. We would like the council to commit not to sell the publicly-accessible portion of the site. 16 months ago, the then-executive board member with responsibility for neighbourhoods and planning told us “that debate is yet to be had”. We can wait no longer for that debate.
2. We ask that this site be reconsidered as designated greenspace. It was allocated for business park development 23 years ago but the local context has changed greatly. Red Hall House was sold in 2010, thereby separating the house from its setting. Any housing on the field would not only damage the historic landscape but also push our ward further into greenspace deficit, exacerbated by the arrival of many thousands of new residents in surrounding developments.
3. As local residents, we would like to participate in decisions regarding the maintenance and landscaping of the field, in ways that respect current usage, that are sympathetic to the site’s history as parkland to the house and that will benefit the many new residents.
4. We would like support and guidance from officers and councillors as to how to ensure sports and recreation aspirations are protected and acknowledged in the decision-making process.
5. We want to retain this open, large, safe area of land so that different activities can take place at the same time – such as football, dog walking and general recreation with our children. There are no parks or public gardens in walking distance. These fields – our only local amenity – serve those purposes too.

We understand the pressure on the council to increase housing stock. Our concern is that in exchange for a small number of homes, we will reduce the community around these fields to a thoroughfare. We will further damage the quantity and quality of greenspace – in a ward chronically deficient in both – to levels unacceptable in the Core Strategy.

As our elected representatives you have this chance to safeguard Red Hall Playing Fields and ensure that this much-loved open greenspace is retained for present and future generations. This would be in keeping with the Leeds aspiration to be one of England’s greenest and most child-friendly cities. This would be a fitting legacy for all the sporting and recreational achievements of which Leeds is so rightly proud.

We would also like to take this opportunity to publicly thank our ward Councillors and Council officers for their understanding and support. Thank you for your time.

At 1pm in the main council meeting on July 8th 2015, we’ll be speaking as part of a deputation in support of retaining the fields as green space. As you know, the council want to build many executive houses on these fields, as well as halving their size by building a dual carriageway on one of the last open community green spaces in our ward.

We’d welcome more support – if you’d like to come along, please do – the deputation will be delivered early in the proceedings, and you don’t have to stay for the whole meeting. If you’d like to be part of the deputation, please get in touch at the usual address.

With the 2015 election coming up on May 7th, where do our East Leeds candidates stand on issues such as those affecting our public green space? We emailed all our candidates to ask. We’ll post their answers here.

Jump to responses

• Richard Burgon, Lab
• Ryan Stephenson, Con
• Kate Bisson, Green

The full email:

Subject: Where do you stand on development and public green space?

Dear <Candidate>,

I’m writing to you (as I’m writing to all my candidates for Leeds East MP) to ask about your stance on local public green space. We run a local group that’s trying to save the fields that we live near. Leeds City Council wants to see thousands of houses built around here, and also want to build on the one green space that could serve those houses – both with a dual carriageway and yet more houses.

This is our local community’s only walkable green space. Not only that, but since our community is on the edge of town, it’s one of our only community amenities.

Conservative planning changes have meant that dozens of amenities such as these all over Leeds are under threat from target-led development and little community vision.

Were we to vote for you, could we rest easy knowing we had your support on local issues such as these?

Sincerely,

Russell Garner Friends of Red Hall Playing Fields

Responses

Ryan Stephenson, Con Apr 20th

Dear Russell

Thanks for your email.

I think it’s best if I’m upfront and say that I am opposed to Leeds City Council’s current core strategy for 70,000 new homes in Leeds.

We do need more affordable homes, 2 to 3 bedroom homes particularly and not the 4/5 bed luxury homes developers are currently building across our green spaces.

The reasons I oppose the Labour-run Council’s current strategy – opposed by Conservative Cllrs in Leeds too – is that it gives big money developers permission to build across 38% of greenfield and Greenbelt land in the City.

Personally, I’d like to see new affordable developments on brownfield land first, of which there is a huge amount in the city. Secondly, simply peppering our communities with small developments does nothing to support the existing settlements where services are already saturated.

I would favour a revised core strategy that takes a proactive approach, looks at brownfield sites and decides to develop stand alone new towns/villages with new schools, Health centres and services built in.

Regrettably, this Labour Council doesn’t have the same view as I do as regards protecting green spaces and existing settlements.

Hope that’s useful.

Yours sincerely

Ryan Stephenson

Richard Burgon, Lab Apr 22nd

Dear Russell

Many thanks for taking the time to write to me in your Friends of Red Hall Playing Fields capacity.

I am of course aware of the proposals from the NE Quadrant consortium, led by Persimmon Homes, for the building of 2000 homes across from Red Hall at the Wetherby Road to Swarcliffe, at York Road. I know that the planning application was submitted some considerable time ago and that Leeds CC are now close to determining the outline application. This follows extensive consultation with local residents, largely led by local Councillors Peter Gruen and Pauleen Grahame.

In my view such a large development will not be possible without the necessary infrastructure; particularly a proper road to cater for all the newly generated traffic and ancillary traffic management measures to ensure that local residents can safely and adequately move about the locality. Keeping rat running at bay will be an important factor for local people. In this context the proposed dual carriageway (ELOR) has been seen as the key initial step to be taken before there is widespread housing development. Normally the private sector would be expected to be the prime developer of this, however I agree with the Council that such has been the local reaction that they wish to ensure this road is built very early on in the process- and to make this happen, they have decided to lead on this project themselves. I hope this gives proper reassurance to local residents.

Of course there are many other infrastructure requirements; such as affordable housing and the right mix of houses, including homes for the elderly through some sheltered provision; locally available school places, green space, public health facilities and public transport.

I know your group is in frequent touch with Peter and Pauleen about these issues, and, if elected, I will join in with these discussions.

If I am elected on 7 May then of course my support can be relied upon in relation to important local planning issues and defending our local environment .

With best wishes

Yours sincerely

Richard Burgon Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for East Leeds

Kate Bisson, Green Apr 27th

Dear Russell

Thank you for contacting me about this important issue, and sorry for the delay in replying to you. I met another member of your group last week on a walk with the Friends of Wyke Beck Valley, and we spoke at length about the plans for the East Leeds Orbital Road and the new housing in the North-East Quadrant that threatens the Red Hall playing fields. From this conversation and having read the information on your website, it seems clear to me that this situation has been handled poorly by your local councillors and by Leeds City Council as a whole.

As you quite rightly point out, the playing fields are the only local green space available to your community, and are clearly valued and well used. For that reason alone, they should be protected by your elected representatives and not sold off to a developer. Leeds City Council is suffering the effects of the Coalition’s harsh austerity measures which have slashed local authority budgets, but councillors should nonetheless be expected to stand up and fight for the communities they have been elected to represent, not simply sell off local amenities and use the cuts as an excuse.

The Green group on Leeds City Council objected to the unrealistic and unnecessary target of 70,000 new homes for Leeds within the Local Plan, and Greens argue strongly for bringing empty properties back into use and building on brownfield sites before any green space is used. Nationally, the Green Party would like to see the Conservatives’ National Planning Policy Framework abolished, as it is clearly little more than a developer’s charter which undermines the rights of communities to have a say in what happens to their local areas.

My own professional background is in the transport sector, so I am well aware that new road-building schemes do not alleviate congestion but simply create more. Leeds urgently needs a different approach to transport planning which prioritises walking, cycling and public transport over private vehicle use. I am very concerned to hear that MetroCards have been withdrawn from the housing development plans as a cost-cutting measure – this is an extremely short-sighted move that will only serve to reinforce car dependence amongst residents if the scheme goes ahead.

Whether or not I am elected on May 7, I would like to work with you on the campaign to protect Red Hall playing fields, and bring my professional knowledge as well as my political support to bear to assist you. Please keep me in touch regarding developments and future meetings.

Best wishes

Kate

Yesterday Leeds City Plans Panel gave the go-ahead for 2,000 homes on Leeds ‘Northern Quadrant’ site. I spoke as an objector to the plans.

This development, as outlined, creates immediate social fault lines. The thin strips of green space situated at the new road’s northern and eastern edges are not primarily there for residents. It insults the intelligence that it continues to be called a “Country Park”.

One good thing came from the meeting: 12% affordable housing on-site was increased to 15%. It is for the developers to decide whether that is acceptable to them.

This is the full text of the objection:

While much has been done to this ambitious planning application to achieve some of the aims of the adopted Leeds Core Strategy, many aspects remain unsatisfactory both from that document’s perspective and that of the National Planning Policy Framework.

Section 1.8 of the Core Strategy speaks of “[giving] priority to sustainable development, seeking to remove social inequality; maintaining, protecting and enhancing environmental quality for the people of Leeds.”

Siting the questionably-named “Country Park” on the hard shoulder of the northern side of four lanes of asphalt, divided from residents via a footbridge is directly at odds with both our own Core Strategy and paragraph 69 of the NPPF. It is emblematic of the road’s creation of sharp social inequality – creating countryside “haves” and suburban “have-nots”.

We’ve heard it expressed by a councillor living outside ELOR that it says “Leeds stops here”. That statement is itself socially divisive.

The road design prejudices the future of existing public green space to the west of it, placing as it does part of a roundabout within that site’s borders. This selective compartmentalisation can be described as neither an “integrated approach” nor “guarding against the loss of valued facilities”, both of which NPPF paragraph 70 calls for.

Paragraph 73 talks of access to high quality open spaces and opportunities for sport and recreation, assessed against “deficits or surpluses of open space”.

We note three small new green spaces within ELOR. Can residents be reassured with hard figures that with the arrival of some 6-8000 new residents that a ward chronically deficient in five out of six categories of green space will not be pushed further into deficit?

Paragraph 35 talks of priority being given to sustainable transport modes. In this application, Coal Road – often used as a quieter cycling route – will be closed, cycle improvements are to be made one year after the road is built, and metrocards have already been withdrawn.

Core Strategy 4.9.5 talks of “minimising the growth in travel by car”. NPPF Paragraph 30 “support reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and reduce congestion.” The new dual carriageway will increase both. It will make life worse for people travelling to and from Leeds on the A64 and A58, and will create congestion on the outer ring road where dual joins single carriageway.

The road on which this application wholly depends not only has few benefits for existing and future residents, but may never be built. The Council has told residents no building will take place without a road to support it. However, the Chief Planning Officer’s report reveals that the application’s conditions depend only on the completed design of the road. This leaves both the Council and the developers at risk until such time as the road’s benefits case and public inquiry are approved. A letter of comfort from the council is of scant legal value should applicants lose out.

Leeds makes much of its reputation as one of Europe’s greenest cities. In this application, the level of car dependence and the cutting off of residents from the countryside with a concrete yoke is to that reputation’s great detriment.

Don’t blame the players. If blame must be had let us blame instead a top-tier domestic club system that, honourable exceptions aside, produces so little talent, not to mention the vanished green spaces, the vacuum where once was school sport in inner cities.

Barney Ronay, writing for the Guardian, reminds us that the easy availability of grassroots facilities from an early age are critical for the development of the next generation of national players.

A study undertaken by Matthew Turner of the University of Toronto and Gilles Duranton of the University of Pennsylvania compared the total number of new roads against total miles driven in various U.S. cities between 1980 and 2000.

They found that new roads are the cause of new traffic, not the solution to existing traffic, and cities that have chosen to remove roads have seen benefits:

“After replacing the cars with a river, parkland, and some smaller roads, traffic didn’t get worse and many other things, including pollution, got better.”

The full article is over at Wired.

Agenda (PDF Download)

Last night (17^th Jan 2014), 40-50 people turned out to meet with our ward councillors in a packed Wellington Hill Residents’ Association room. Cllr Debra Coupar was not in attendance, but deputy leader Cllr Peter Gruen and Cllr Pauleen Grahame were, along with several members of planning and policy teams:

• Kathryn Holloway
• Tony Stringwell
• Andrew Crates
• Adam Brannen

There were apologies from people who couldn’t make the 4.45pm start time. It was probably as well that more could not attend, as the WHRA room was full to capacity. Thank you to the WHRA for allowing this meeting to be held at their premises.

These are not minutes. This is a picture of events taken from hastily-scribbled notes while trying to listen and participate. It will be necessarily incomplete.

The agenda

The councillors set the agenda. This was mostly adhered to, although some points were addressed out of order.

Main points of concern for residents

Loss of the fields

The message from our councillors with respect to the fields seems somewhat mixed. We received these messages last night:

• “There are no plans yet for the fields”
• “everybody knows the council is strapped for cash”
• “we cannot simply object to planning applications, as it will go to appeal, and the council will lose”
• “The fields have been planned for development for a long time”

Given these, I raised the following: Red Hall playing fields are currently in public hands. We will not have a problem with planning appeals when no developer owns the land in the first place.

Cllr Gruen’s response to that was: “That debate is yet to be had”.

When we attempt to discuss the fields, we are repeatedly told “There are no plans yet for the fields” and “You will be consulted about any plans for the fields”. Unless I have missed something – and I am prepared to be corrected on this – it seems plain that we are being asked to refrain from commenting on the eventual fate of the fields until such time as a capital receipt for them has been safely banked and their future is out of public hands and in the hands of developers.

(The aforementioned agenda, on p25, Item 6, states “Council to start formal marketing of the Red Hall site” in 2015 )

Here are our messages to Leeds City council. We hope they are not mixed:

“Don’t sell the fields.”

This was explicitly and unequivocally vocalised last evening on more than one occasion. The fields are much in use as a safe, visible and valuable meeting place, a place for informal exercise and play, and at peak times, an overflow for Roundhay Park. They are within walking distance of existing and future residents. Most importantly, unlike the proposed Whinmoor Grange site, they are not miles away from their users on the east periphery of Leeds and on the other side of a dual carriageway.

“Loss of the fields will push a ward with a chronic lack of green space (section 6.1) further into deficit”

Playing fields are uniquely valuable in that they serve a dual purpose: formal sports provision and informal green space. At present, due to the drainage issues, they can only reasonably be used (outside of dry spring and summer weather, at any rate) as informal green space.

“We would like to register the fields as a Local Green Space”

Cllr Gruen said this was “a big ask”. When asked why, he said that we were intelligent people who should all be aware that Leeds City Council is “strapped for cash”. On the one hand, there “are no plans for the fields”. On the other, then, they are going to be sold.

We wish to protect these fields as a green space.

We very much hope we can explore the option of such registration further with Leeds City Council.

Failure of LCC to properly consult on site allocation

Despite a two-month site allocation consultation undertaken in 2013, many residents (both during and after the meeting) expressed shock that they were unaware of such a large and important process. Despite an advertising campaign involving radio, bus advertising, signs in Golden Acre Park and library information, people at the meeting (who cared enough to give up the early part of their Friday evening) were not aware they could have had a say that would have had some effect as early as last summer. A marketing manager in attendance said he “would [have been] sacked” if he had failed to reach his target audience in this way.

There was not time to make the point I wanted to make about that consultation last night, but here it is from a personal perspective: I work from home. When I take buses I tend to be sitting in them reading a book, not reading adverts, my nearest library is over two miles away and not reasonably walkable, and the radio stations chosen (Radio Aire, Magic FM) are not stations I (or indeed many residents) would choose to listen to. The adverts themselves said “Your city, your say”. One of the planning team in attendance expressed the opinion that they had only seen two bus adverts, and it was unclear what the adverts were about.

There were signs in Golden Acre Park. That’s not the green space we use. The green space we use is Red Hall playing fields. All LCC needed to do to engage at least the number of people in the room last night was to place one notice at the entrance to Red Hall playing fields – the site about which local residents are all extremely concerned.

One resident said the results of that consultation should be considered “invalid” given that almost everyone in the room was unaware of it. I would go further – if that consultation is not going to be re-run, then Leeds City Council should consider the objections to site allocation from everyone who wished to be involved but was simply unaware that a consultation was happening – or if they were aware, were unaware of what it was for and what sites it covered.

Drainage issues

It was widely agreed that the fields as they are are ‘somewhat damp’. A resident who identified himself as a drainage expert asked if plans for the “herringbone” drainage system were available. Tony Stringwell said that they were not.

It was noted that the ditches to the side of the field which have the egress points for the herringbone system were full of vegetation and that there was no opportunity for water egress.

Tony Stringwell said that LCC would look to use the VertiDrain machine to address compaction issues when the fields are drier in late summer.

Lack of clarity about the eventual ELOR route

Joining the ring road

Concern was expressed that it is not possible to see where ELOR is to end up. Adam Brannen stated that work to determine where the ELOR will join the outer ring road was in a very early stage.

Using the fields for the route

We’re not entirely clear on when the decision was taken to use part of the playing fields for the dual carriageway. We recall seeing an ELOR feasibility study document produced by Mouchel that took our breath away back in October which appeared to suggest that the fields could be decimated by running the ELOR south of Red Hall itself.

We don’t think the site allocations consultation is valid in the case of the fields. No map in that consultation showed the ELOR route – the consultation concerned “sites suitable for housing” – and the ELOR was only mentioned in passing in tables and footnotes.

Likely traffic problems from the NQ-planned ELOR route

The ELOR as presented in the major departure NQ documents is now dual carriageway. Concern was expressed by residents that a section of higher-speed dual carriageway meeting an unchanged single carriageway in the shape of the outer ring road was a recipe for tailbacks and concomitant rat-running.

If there are plans for the ORR to address these issues, they do not yet appear to be in the public domain. Please get in touch if you know otherwise. We’re particularly concerned about how such works would be funded.

On 17^th January 2014 at 4.45pm, our ward councillors Peter Gruen, Pauleen Grahame and Debra Coupar will be meeting with local residents at the Wellington Hill Residents’ Association community building. Many of us have registered our concerns with them via email and now we’ll have the opportunity to get answers to some of our most pressing questions.

Please arrive a few minutes before the start of the meeting at 4.45pm to ensure the meeting starts on time.

Find out what is planned for these fields and have your say in their future!