Of mice and men . .

Grrrr, Bad Community Activist!

Last year I really enjoyed the Beeston Festival and had an absolutely clear intention to go this year and contribute by baking a cake or just buying something from one of the lovely food stalls. However, as so often happens real life gets in the way – bloody real life.

I am currently in the midst of completing an assignment for a Masters course, which is proving a lot more difficult than I had intended, and writing this post is proving to be a welcome respite from writing about pedagogical rationales and reflective and collaborative learning.

After initially finding it difficult to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, it is 2011 after all) I now find that I have to cut 1000 words from my assignment.

So what happens to the best laid plans of mice and men? In the face of the above I completely forgot about the festival, about baking a cake (I love baking) and enjoying a bit of interaction with the fellow members of the South Leeds Massive and I am gutted and very cross with myself for being such a knob. I saw a banner advertising it and thought “oh I must go”, and then realised that it had taken place the day before, curses!

I’ve missed the hottest day of the year sitting at my laptop, grrrrr, and have become a virtual recluse in the last three to four weeks (I really don’t remember my last assignment being this difficult), barely leaving the house not even for beer and disco.

I have taken a fair bit of time off work however to write, so it’s been interesting to be at home during the week and seeing what occurs in our little derelict corner of the world. As predicted in other posts the summer weather, disappointing as it has been, has brought out the evening socialites of South Leeds. It’s the South Leeds Summer Lullaby – blaring music is short bursts (just long enough to pop outside and have a nice fag) and shouting to the person standing less than 2 feet away from you . . . . aahhhh, how lovely; squealing car tyres, screeching breaks and revving engines and yes the ever present bass-heavy throb of dub step.

Yesterday was Father’s day though I did manage to get a card, my Dad’s present didn’t arrive until today and I’ll be honest I didn’t really make a big fuss of him which is not great is it? So confessions and whingeing out of the way it’s back to work on my assignment and to wrap my dad’s belated pressie.

Hopefully I’ll have something interesting to report next time.

Community Meeting update - June 2011

Ok – just a very quick update about the latest Community Meeting. New faces this time, only one other resident but at least landlords are starting to get involved, sadly none of the regulars attended.

I was pleased that Leeds City Council have pretty much dealt with all of the issues that they said they would in last meeting, Fly Tipping and property checks were pretty high on the list. Both of these things have been addressed.

We also got another update on the progress of demolition. It’s going to take at least a few months before the properties that still remain occupied will be emptied and the residents housed elsewhere, and it might even take longer than that. There wasn’t anyone there from Leeds Fed so we didn’t get an update from them, however LCC explained the process in relation to the transfer of properties from LCC to Leeds Fed. This will clear all the remaining blocks of houses bar two or three. In these remaining blocks, where possible the empty houses will be refurbished and let to new tenants.

I also hadn’t realised that funding had been completely withdrawn from LCC to buy up the remaining properties, so private owners will have to sell their properties themselves if they want to move away. However, it’s doubtful that those properties will now be demolished.   Hopefully though refurbishment and letting of the empty properties that surround the privately owned ones should help to maintain property values and allow owner occupiers to sell for a reasonable amount. It should also help to make the area feel less abandoned. Hopefully demolition will start before winter, but we’ll wait and see.

Despite everything that’s going on here these houses are nice little start up houses so hopefully we’ll get a little movement on the property market over the coming months.

Lilly

I am disappointed that attendance was so low at the meeting, apart from me and the council bods no other regulars showed, though it was half term so hopefully that contributed to it. But if membership doesn’t pick up over the next 12 months I can’t see me still attending, though I’ll keep in contact with LCC and Leeds Fed hopefully, you can’t have a community group that the community doesn’t support. Umm, so both good and disappointing - next meeting to be arranged sometime late July or early August so I’ll keep you posted.

As an edit I've added a few floral pictures.

Rose and bug

Lavendar