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

Newsletter

I’ve been away for a couple of weeks visiting friends and family up and down the country and have returned to cleared out bin yards, hurrah! It’s amazing how something so simple can make such a huge difference to an area, it’s taken a good few months but Leeds City Council came through in the end.  Hopefully the general levels of detritus blown around the street will decrease now too.

Also as the evenings are now lighter later my curtain twitching habit is surging again. It’s amazing how many little open backed vans trundle up and down our streets of an evening, peering into bin yards in the hope of a lovely abandoned fridge. With any luck the empty bin yards will stay that way and the trundling vans will fade away, rightly or wrongly I’ve assumed they’re scrap merchants looking for swag; sadly no rag and bone men any more.  Though I am almost certain I heard one calling out last year, he had a horse and everything when I had a look.

We’re also about to send out our first newsletter to the local community. It’ll update people on the future plans for demolition and refurbishment of the remaining properties, we’re also hoping to engage with more residents and encourage more attendance at the meetings and involvement in the area in general.

My task over the next few months, as well as finishing off a fairly large University assignment, is looking into the possibility of getting some funding to have wildflowers planted on the ground left after demolition. LCC can fund basic grassing of the areas which would be great, but we need to raise funds if residents would prefer a more aesthetic solution. There are other benefits to more diverse flora in an urban area too, such as encouraging wildlife back to urban areas and creating Bee Roads and there are potential sources of funding such as Plan Bee that I will be investigating.

LCC and Leeds Fed have done all the work so far to be fair, I’ve just set up a gmail account and searched for a non beer related head and shoulder shot of me to add as Chair of the group.  To say that I hate having my photo taken would be a huge understatement. I’m not the most photogenic person so it’s always a stressful experience looking at a picture of yourself and realising you don’t actually look like one of the cast of 90210 but as long as I don’t look like Ena Sharples I suppose it’s not too bad.

I’m also looking into a new community group meeting venue, our original venue has changed purpose (or got wise) so we can no longer use it and we have had to shift to a venue further away with no windows, so not overly conducive to comfortable discussion. I’ll wait to see what my enquiries bring.

Over the last month the sun has been shining which is very unusual for this time of year. Over the last two weeks in-between the sun shining the wind has also been blowing and the rain has been lashing down. Everything does looks better in the sun when it does shine and I suppose the rain has meant I haven’t had to water my tomato plants too much over the last 2 weeks.

My front yard is in a right state both my potted plants and the weeds are doing pretty well due to the aforementioned sun and rain. I’ve tackled the weeds with some nice chemicals and will try and tidy them up this weekend weather permitting; not one of nature’s gardeners me.  I also need to paint my front door, a task I have no idea how to start or even complete. I mean do you have to remove the door, or can you just clean and sand it in situ and hope for the best? And do I need special outdoor paint? I think that might wait until later in the summer.

Apparently you can often tell the privately owned properties in predominantly social or council owned housing estates by the state of their front doors. Privately owned houses are often in a worse state cosmetically, I’d certainly attest to that.

So I’ve mucked about with the Blog a bit too so if anyone is interested you can follow by email by entering your details in the little box provided and hopefully this means that you don’t have to set up a Google account if you don’t want to, though you may be added to a sinister database somewhere that could try to sell you Viagra and kidney transplants at a later date.

And that’s all the factual stuff for now so from Ena and me, hope you enjoyed reading and have a pint of stout on us (well we’re not paying, just buy it yourself).

Rickaaaayyyyy!

So it looks like I’m focussing on noise for the next few posts; mainly because it’s too depressing to post about how Leeds City Council still hasn’t managed to clear all of the rubbish from their neglected bin yards yet. I mean it’s not like they have any influence over the refuse collection department is it . . . . . . oh.

Anyhow.

I lived next door to some of the more persistently annoying neighbours when I lived in London in my twenties. I shared a three bed roomed terraced house with two other splendid ladies on a quiet street in Battersea.

On both sides of our rented house the houses were converted into one bed flats, so we had two sets of neighbours on both sides, three lots of them were entertaining to say the least. Today I’ll concentrate on Ricky and Bianca. Not their real names.

Ricky and Bianca lived in one of the upstairs flats that flanked our house. Their living room bordered onto the main bedroom upstairs in our place. Ricky was a 40 plus year old black guy who thought he was a real gangsta – a real gangsta who drove a Lada and bought his trainers from ASDA that is.

Bianca wouldn’t say boo to a goose if you saw her in the street but when Ricky was resident in-between his many absences; she was a seriously forceful character. Reading between the lines, and not being able to avoid the eardrum ripping arguments that would occur, it seemed that Ricky was not the greatest boyfriend ever and to be honest he may not have even been her boyfriend, he could have been her deadbeat brother for all we knew.

Bianca seemingly had a regular job and possibly worked normal hours etc.

Ricky had a duvet in the back seat of his Lada.

There are two incidents that I can remember reasonably well. One was on one of the few visits my mum made to London.

I love my mum, but it was always interesting when she visited Fancy London. Bravely refusing to bow down to London peer pressure on the Tube by avoiding eye contact with complete strangers lest they be a serial killer or a religious maniac like any seasoned London traveller would, my mum’s right in there with full eye contact and a big smile and questions like “What’s that smell?” and “Why are there no bins at Kings Cross?” (The answer in case you’re wondering is that there are no bins in London so the IRA and latterly Al Qaeda can’t put bombs in them. Reassuring isn’t it.)

Anyway back to Ricky and Bianca. My Mum arrived in Battersea and we settled down for some tea, a natter and some lovely booze but as Ricky made one of his sporadic and unwelcome visits to next door and the fun started. We had to endure a hellish night of thumping music, screaming, shouting and the usual bangs and crashes that went on until the early hours, however we did eventually get to sleep.

The next morning we got up; wrung out from lack of sleep and nerves jangling I went to open the front door to find the most bizarre scene outside the house. The first thing to greet my weary eyes was a pair of (ugly) platform boots tossed haphazardly on our doorstep. As I ventured a little further into the street I saw that Bianca had been a busy girl during the night’s festivities.

Strewn across the road and draped over hedges and front yard walls were just about all of Ricky’s possessions. These included CDs, clothes (George at ASDA no doubt), foot wear and I’m pretty sure a telly – all topped off by a bleary eyed Ricky peering sheepishly from under a duvet on the back seat of his Lada.

I didn’t need my mum to see that first thing so I resignedly shut the door on the apocalyptic scene outside and went back to get the kettle on. Tea makes everything better.

By the time mum and I had caffeined up and set off on whatever cultural/retail activity we had planned for that day the street had been mostly cleared, not by a shamefaced Ricky I hasten to add, but by some kids with a shopping trolley. I like a young entrepreneur, and we had a number of them in Battersea.

The second memorable incident was another extraordinary public display of discord. I have no idea what led to the surreal tableau that was witnessed by residents and guests of our happy little home that evening, but it was glorious.

After hearing yet another Ricky and Bianca row spilling out into the street we peered out to see Bianca enthusiastically attacking Ricky’s beloved Lada with a large (and possibly rusty) hand saw and Ricky in turn defending his battered yet treasured car by tentatively hooking a golf club over Bianca’s saw every time she started in on the Lada’s bonnet, or he could have been aiming for her head.

I can’t remember how it resolved itself, I have a vague memory that she was screaming for help and we obliged by calling the police who trooped down and intervened.  Then we went back to whatever we were doing; waiting for the next enthralling episode to unfurl no doubt.

It sounds like we didn’t care but to be honest when it’s a regular occurrence you begin to lose any sense of moral outrage about domestic abuse and just start inwardly screaming “Leave him! Stop letting him in! Let me get some sleep!”

I look back on these incidents with sort of hazy fondness and a sense of detachment now, but at the time it was desperate. As I write this I can remember the diaries I kept for the Peabody Trust (the Housing Association that managed the bordering flats) and the disappointment I felt when their intervention turned out to be about as effective Nick Clegg/Viagra for pandas/a chocolate teapot.

Another testament to the dreadful impact noisy neighbours can have. Well at least I’ve got a few funny anecdotes out of it, lucky me eh?

Greetings Pop Pickers

Greetings pop pickers

Hello again here’s a post about noise abatement and nuisance neighbours.

A lot of the time where I live is pretty quiet, but when South Leeds wants to party they turn it up to 11.

By far the majority of people on my street are quiet and keep themselves to themselves. Ok we don’t really mix a great deal but I don’t think we upset each other either.

A couple of years ago I became very familiar with the out of hours noise abatement team from Leeds City Council due to a couple of particularly noisy neighbours.

There were two households that contributed to mine, and I would have thought everyone else’s misery by generally being what I like to call a ‘bunch of bastards’.

In back to back terraces the sound proofing is pretty thin so you can hear an awful lot of what’s going on either side and at the back of you; particularly as every room in your house touches a room in someone else’s. You can hear vacuum cleaners, computer games, chatting, laughing, shouting, music, telly, people walking up stairs, snoring, giggling in the bath and alarms going off in the morning.

Most of these noises are pretty normal, and as you’re moving about your own house, you don’t really notice it and most likely contribute to it, in fact I’d probably miss the day to day stuff if it wasn’t there; it’s just the sound of ordinary people going about their lives.

I should also point out that I’m not averse to a party, in fact I’ve thrown a few of my own (and been at a few where the neighbours have called the police to get us to be quiet in my younger days), however never night after night at the same house.  Everyone’s entitled to throw a party now and again. It’s the persistent offenders that really cause the problems.

A big gripe with persistent offenders would be about the quality of the music played at full volume. Why do you never hear Tchaikovsky, Bowie, Joni Mitchell or Roxy Music blaring out from their stereos? It’s always something excruciating like Scooter or some other dreadful techno crap, either that or Country and Western.

I like a bit of C&W by the way, but it’s not the good stuff that gets blasted out, oh no! Apparently if you’re an anti social drunk with volume control issues the good stuff isn’t what you want to listen to over and over again at 2 a.m., you want to listen to Billy Ray Cyrus’s Achy Breaky Heart, and you want everybody else in a 500 metre radius to listen to it with you!

Also why is there never a selection of tunes, no it’s too much like hard work to drag yourself up off your booze addled backside and change the CD. Simply put Billy Ray on repeat, preferably just the one song for hours and hours and hours . . . . . . at full volume. Or pull your car up outside your pre pubescent girlfriend’s house and play your shitty techno at full blast in the street. Everybody loves that.

In one spectacularly disturbing incident a persistent offender, previously reported to and witnessed by the Noise Abatement team, selected a series of appropriate karaoke tunes over which to shout racist epithets and threats at full volume from midnight to 2.a.m.

Now I’m not a racist socially incompetent loser so I’m not sure I’d have picked the same play list, however let’s have a guess at what aural treats bombarded my delicate ears that evening; a touch of Screwdriver perhaps? No?

What about some thrash metal or hardcore rap, no?  Some Wagner perhaps? No, not Wagner either.

You’re right of course, the perfect accompaniment to an evening of racist ranting is yes, you guessed it, ‘Lucky’ by Britney Spears; a simple tale of one starlet’s struggle to find comfort in the harsh realities of showbiz.

Then what to follow? Yes it’s an obvious choice; Leanne Rimes’ ‘Can’t fight the moonlight’, that well known right wing anthem. It’s even better if you know all the words and can sing along in a drunken slurry fashion (but not in tune), those cheeky racist drunks and their karaoke machines.

This was a fairly typical occurrence, at least twice a week for months and months and months. And as if the random music choices and racist shouting weren’t enough it was often accompanied by door slamming and wall banging. And sometimes if I was lucky the music would come to an unexpected halt when their CD player got stuck on one note, at full volume, for 20 minutes at a time – imagine that if you can. Like I said earlier, bastards!

However all of this torture did abruptly come to an end when they set fire to the house and were re-housed.  Shame that.

Thanks for reading.

Picking over a carcass.

A general rant. Enjoy.

So how have thing been over the last few weeks in general: a few sleepless nights due to odd car behaviour in the street (more on that later), unsecure abandoned buildings, rubbish filled bin yards and the commencement of demolition. All good stuff.

Linked to this is the thought in my head, “am I the only person who calls the police and reports stuff?”

I’m sure I’m not, as I get regular updates from our Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator and these tell me that other people have been arrested and stopped mid crime due to calls from residents. Both reassuring and disturbing in equal measures.

I’m never sure when you stop being a concerned member of the community and become an irritating loon because you report things to the police or the local authority because you ‘think’ you’ve seen or heard something.

I suspect I fall somewhere between the two.

Legitimate calls or emails to the police or the neighbourhood watch coordinator I’ve made over the last few months have been made up of:

•  reporting the stealing of bin yard metal work (left there by the council because NOBODY would think of nicking fixtures and fittings from abandoned buildings!);
• reporting a witnessed vandalism/attempted breaking on an abandoned property on my street;
•  reporting a suspected act of vandalism/attempted break in on one of the streets along from me (heard but didn’t see breaking glass and general smashing late at night) and last but not least
•  people rummaging through rubbish bins and tipping the contents out on to the ground of the bin yards on 3 separate occasions.

I think I should have called the police over a couple of other things, but had no real information to give them other than; “I’ve seen a weird man driving around our streets at night with no headlights on. He wasHeHe was stopping and starting his car and changing parking spots regularly, so generally behaving in a suspicious way.”

Perhaps he was just socially inept, people sometimes are you know, but I don’t think ignorance of your inconsiderate behaviour is a good enough defence for behaving like a thoughtless knob.

Added to this there are people standing in abandoned bin yards at night for no good reason, people driving up and down the street in-between the bin yards at night with their headlights off (different car this time) and people gunning their car engines to reach maximum warp at all times of the day and night (it’s hardly Silverstone in South Leeds – no one needs to go above 20 mph in a residential area). 

However because the street lighting is poor on our street and no one lives opposite me anymore, (I don’t even get ambient light from their houses, woe is me) I can’t see clearly enough to make a note of useful information such as make, model or the number plate of repeat offenders without going and standing directly in front or behind these cars with a pad and pen. Not likely to happen!

I suspect they are fly tipping or at the very least assessing their options for fly tipping, though the bin yard opposite me stays relatively free of trash since I called to have it cleared last year (LCC very quick to respond to this by the way). 

I suspect this in some way due to my ostentatious curtain twitching and arms crossed front-door-step stance that I take-up whenever I see anyone suspicious lurking unnecessarily near my house  - I’m really am only three curlers, a house-coat and a hairnet away from becoming Hilda Ogden.

But this does highlight for me the general anxiety I feel now when at home. Every noise, car engine, smash, bang and alarm has me leaping up to have a look. I Shhhhhhhh people on the phone and wake in the night and so I can nervously twitch my curtains (not a euphemism by the way) every time I hear an unusual sound.

I watched a telly programme the other week about an elephant carcass in Africa, killed by poachers I believe, and the predators, scavengers and organisms that picked over its flesh and bones. In a matter of days it was a deflated elephant skin suit except for a writhing, bubbling mass of maggots. The larger predators had quickly arrived and taken the softer easier targets (I was particularly impressed with the first hyena’s choice of entry point! That must have been what Local Authorities felt like when the budget cuts were announced! See link to video on YouTube below) and finally the insects and other small things rapidly consuming what was left of poor old Dumbo. 

I thought at the time; welcome to my world where my street is a dying pachyderm; a monument to prehistoric housing and bad investment. The neighbourhood is quite literally being picked clean by predators and scavengers. Except unlike poor predated Dumbo from the telly, my community isn’t dead and its constituent parts are not being redistributed to nourish the flora and fauna of South Leeds. The remaining residents have to watch whilst this attack spreads like an infection. This diseased area will not be picked clean quickly; it’s being left to rot.

I’m not sure I know where the blame lies, everyone seems to be holding up their hands and saying ‘don’t look at me. We’re doing the best we can’. But they don’t live here so let’s hope the Big Society works and we can reclaim our streets

 Poor old Dumbo’s sticky end meets what can only be described as a ‘sticky end’.