Valley Road Public Meeting - what a turn out!



Hundreds attend MBI Traveller Meeting

 Hundreds of people attended our meeting on Monday to launch the campaign opposing the planning application for a Traveller site at Valley Road in Morley. The number of concerned citizens overwhelmed the Town Hall with people having to stand outside to hear the debate.

I set out our clear objections - both planning and community - to this application. The site is inappropriate for this use. It is too large an application, on contaminated land, to close to the railway line and is at an unsustainable location. It is industrial land and should be used to bring more jobs to Morley - not for a Cottingley Springs Mark 2 Travellers site.

Speaker after speaker backed our campaign including both Labour and the Conservatives. Concerns were raised about community safety and the impact the proposed traveller site would have on crime levels. One of the major points to come out of the evening was a clearly held view that Morley had already contributed to resolving the Leeds Traveller problem. With Cottingley Springs on our doorstep and several small family sites across the Greater Morley Area - we are doing our bit to accommodate the Traveller burden. Other areas need to take their fair share and not dump the problem on Morley Folk for them to solve!

My colleague Cllr Shirley Varley spoke passionately against the proposal which drew the largest applause of the whole evening!

We are WAGs not NIMPYs. That is We've already given not Not in my back yard types.Its time for other areas to take their fair share!

This was an excellent meeting and it is very humbling to see so many Morley Folk back the MBI Campaign. This is a unified campaign with Morley residents backing our position. It will be interesting to see if Labour buckle on the matter. After all our very own Labour Councillor Neil Dawson backed the expansion of Cottingley Springs as well as the £1.6 million financing package that goes along with it. It will be interesting to see if he can deliver his Labour colleagues to back the refusal campaign. After all Labours reputation in Morley is poor because of their voting record of backing Developers rather than local people.

Lets hope this time they have the backbone to back Morley and not the Party Line!