Demolition goes on - pictures.

This is the view from my window now. It looks as though the demolition is continuing. I did think these houses would be refurbished but a couple of weeks ago the last residents left and on Monday the diggers moved in.

On the upside it's really opening up the view (of the derelict Kwick Save), hopefully this means more sun in the summer. It is a shame that we couldn't get more houses refurbised and back into use. And I did think that more open space would mean less fly tipping as it would be easier to spot the scum bags that do it, but it just continues to get worse and no one seems to care.

Apologies for the quality of the photos, there used to be 4 houses here and soon a lovely view of the arse end of Dewsbury Road.

plumes of dust, all very apocolyptic.

bye bye

the landscape begins to open up.

More digger action

same thing, different picture.

A huge plume of black dust!! I believe these houses used soot to help build the internal lath and plaster walls so it's being released back into the atmosphere in what is no doubt a large carcegenic/asthma enducing cloud!

A bit closer

Community Meeting Update - Sept 2011

Pessimistic know it all gets proved wrong.

The latest community meeting has come and gone, and for the most part it was great. One of the best turnouts we’ve had, so no need for me to stomp off in a self righteous sulk. We’ve also had notice that demolition will begin in a couple of weeks so I’ve taken a few pictures to start charting progress. Also giant house spiders have started invading my house, but that’s not really relevant I just wanted to share.

aaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhh . . 

The meeting was very interesting, some new faces and some familiar ones. People are very concerned about the state of the neighbourhood, and I don’t blame them. Emotions were running high, a bit of a cliché for a community meeting, but watching your street become increasingly neglected with what seems like no hope of anything being done to ease the situation can lead to hot heads and frayed tempers.

However we had representatives from the police, Leeds City Council and housing associations so all in all there were nearly 20 people present. Some were a little disruptive, but I fully appreciate that they felt frustrated at how things have been delayed. Though I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s anxieties, and I agree that the community meeting is a good place to raise your issues, share your problems and express your frustration, criminal activity has to be formally reported to the police for it to be tackled. I also appreciate that regular foot patrols reassure residents, but unless the cops actually happen upon someone doing something criminal as they walk by, then they’re mostly just a PR exercise. My eyesight’s pretty shoddy, but even I can see a high visibility vest mooching up the street towards me, and I suspect that your average neighbourhood scrote can do the same.

preparing for demolition

Crime needs to be formally reported, if you’re seeing it and not reporting it you are not helping to resolve it. I also understand that fear of retaliation stops people, but I’ve filmed people nicking metal railings, stood up in court to give evidence, given statements to the police, kept noise diaries, rung the police and gone into the street to challenge antisocial and criminal behaviour; I’m not brave, quite the opposite, but when pushed I can stand up for myself, sort of, and I’ve yet to be threatened with any retaliation.

Residents it seems have also been doing some good stuff, tidying up the streets which are quite frankly looking like shit at the moment. It’s not gone unnoticed and people are very grateful.  Also someone’s dumped some lovely asbestos in one of the bin yards, which has hopefully been removed by now. Also alarmingly enough, there is asbestos in some of the houses that are going to be demolished, so let’s hope the HASMAT suits are broken out for that portion of the demolition.

what the streets near me might have looked like when they were built

It’s also been highlighted that it is unlikely that a developer will want to buy or develop the land, as it’s not been fully cleared and some of the properties will remain. But for me demolition is still the sensible thing to do, derelict property is not acceptable on a large scale as anything other than a short term situation.

Well that’s it for now, I’ve added some images here and on the pictures page, and I’ll keep adding as the demolition progresses, so if you’re interested keep your eyes peeled.

Half of my street is being prepared for demolition

just waiting for the wrecking ball . . .

Anticipating disappointment

Community groups without the community.

Another meeting has been arranged for next week. I’ve typed up the minutes from the last meeting, booked a room and a number of staff at Leeds City Council have designed a leaflet to invite residents and they will also help with the distribution. Leeds Federated Housing is paying for the room that we’ll use, it’s not a huge amount but it’s still a cost that they are generously covering. I’m very grateful for all the support, the group such as it is, wouldn’t exist without these people whose job it is to help. A lot of people who work in local regeneration and housing give their time to this group. I know for a number of them it’s their job, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be recognised for it – it must be soul destroying to have to keep giving up your evenings to attend a meeting that even residents couldn’t care less about.

When the community group first started we had a paid for community worker, let’s call her Bliss, who worked across many projects doing the kinds of things listed above that I am starting to find myself having to do now. OK so my role isn’t hugely burdensome, but I’ve got a hundred other things I could be doing instead just like we all have. So why don’t we have Bliss anymore? Many community workers’ roles were paid for by funding that had been bid for by Local Authorities, short term and often applied for very specific projects with specific outputs aimed at specific social groups or geographic areas this meant that when the swingeing budget cuts came in after the 2010 election, Bliss and people like her were easy targets for a quick way to reduce outgoings.

Bye bye community outreach workers, thanks for all the vital work you’ve done, don’t let the door hit you on the arse on your way out.

In the context of the Con-Dem’s Big Society it seems counter-intuitive to undermine the existing infrastructure by removing funding from the very people who worked in the community. Not only have we lost a great member of a community team but we’ve lost the experience and goodwill that she generated and I doubt that the knowledge that she acquired and the positive working practices that she developed have been preserved for the good of the community.

I understand how the Big Society will do well in communities that already have the determination to band together and work for common goals. At the moment it very much feels a bit like the Wellness clinics that popped up around the place a few years back. Envisioned to improve the health and well being of the general public, I suspect those that are already proactive about their wellbeing will be availing themselves of the facilities and those that are too preoccupied with making ends meet will be watching it all happen to someone else; as always those harder to reach are left behind.

My little community is most certainly not rising to the challenge at the moment, though I hope I’m proved wrong at the meeting next week. Maybe I’m being too negative but I don’t hold out much hope for the continuation of the Community Group. I don’t have the capacity, or to be fair the inclination to do much more than I already am, so it’s not like I’m setting myself up as a positive example because I’m quite lazy, but a few more people need to start contributing or else it’s destined to go tits up.

Well that’s it for today, small whinge over. I’ll update after the community meeting as hopefully we’ll get news about the demolition and the renovation of the remaining properties, tragically I’m looking forward to that. I can’t take any more fly-tipping, derelict houses and general decay, no wonder I’m such a miserable cow.

miserable cow

Letters of note

After a very quiet couple of months with very little happening, hence the lack of posts recently, I've received two letters in as many weeks from the Leeds City Council.

The first politely informing me that I would be fined if I left my bin out on the street after bin day, as apparently this is becoming a huge problem in our little community. The second telling me that any remaining metal work left in the binyards attached to the remaining empty homes would be removed to stop our area being targeted by thieves.

Now I don’t like to be snippy but hang on a minute let’s just take a small step back. I’m going to address the second letter first. As someone who actually videoed the last gate on my street being nicked from a bin yard over the road from me about 11 months ago, I would suggest that this is a little like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

Reasons of safety, crime prevention and recycling are quoted as being the main drivers for finally removing the few remaining bits of metalwork, though I would have thought that the collapsed walls that block the pavement and are just ripe for a small child to be trapped under would be as much of a motivation. Also removing the metal work whilst most of it still remained would have made better economic sense, but hey ho hindsight is a marvellous thing.

wall kicked over to remove metal work

And my little snipe about the bins being left out on the street, I’ll admit it winds me right up too as I always bring my bins back in but come on . . . . when this

A room with a view.

is the view from my house, and has been for over a year I’m not sure Leeds City Council are in any position to make demands about abandoned bins. A couple of them have been slung into the road of late, either by stormy weather (Lovely British summer) or by what the press would more recently refer to as yobs, I would call them bastards or little shits.

This for me raises the issue of blanket warnings, like those incredibly insulting messages about pirating films at the beginning of legitimately bought dvds that you can’t fast forward through. It’s like buying a bus ticket and being slapped in the face by the driver, just in case you decide not to buy one next time. I don’t leave my bin out all the time (sometimes when I’ve been away on holiday or for work I’ve had no option if I’ve wanted my bin collected, or I don’t put it out at all). I’m probably overreacting and I do understand that it’s better to give people a warning before you go in guns blazing, but it still puts my back up.

 I strongly suspect that some of these bins belong to the now derelict houses on the other side of the street, houses that belong to Leeds City Council. And yes it is annoying to have to step out onto the street to walk around someone’s pizza box stuffed wheelie bin that resides permanently on the pavement, but is it any less annoying than jumping up to your window every time an unfamiliar noise rings out down the street and your first conclusion is that it’s yet another scrote in a hoody kicking the door in of a derelict house on your street.

At least the bin yards seem to have been cleared of any recent fly tipping – the standard mattress appeared a couple of weeks ago on a parallel street, but at least the massive plastic jug of cooking oil that the kids were playing with in the street a couple of weeks ago seems to have been dealt with by what I can only assume was a biohazard team. Anyway, rant over for now. I’m trying to organise another community meeting for late August early September so we’ll see what news there is on the demolition front. It can’t come soon enough for me.

broken window

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

Community Meeting update

A very quick update here.

We’ve just had another Community Group Meeting. A pretty good turn out by our standards and some new faces which was good.

It’s always good to hear that you’re not the only one with a particular gripe, fly tipping rates highly for everyone and the need to get the bin yards cleared, which is reassuring.

I was personally very pleased to hear that there are plans to bring some of the houses back into use. I think Leeds Federated Housing are looking into this I had a note to raise this as an issue, but had absolutely no idea how it would be put into practice so I’m delighted that someone better  qualified than me has already thought about it – good news for the Empty Homes agenda too.

There are plans for future demolitions which is a relief and even though things are not good for residents I felt like we were listened to and hopefully action will be taken. It’s gonna take time, but at least there’s progress.

Also looking into planting wildflowers on the cleared ground, but we’ll need to find funding to do this. And onto the next big news, to be able to apply for funding we need to become a formal group and that means setting up bank accounts and getting a resident Chairperson – which is me!! Gulp.

Hope I can do a good job.

Anyway more offensively swear ladened rants to follow

See ya