McDonalds Battle continues

Morley Borough Independent councillors are gearing up for a further battle with McDonald's following news that their appeal against refusal of planning permission at Tingley has been ruled as legitimate. The appeal will be considered via written representations and a visit will be paid to the site before the Planning Inspector makes a final decision.

Cllr Shirley Varley said “Local residents are not prepared to be bullied by this large multi-national company. Their applications were refused on legitimate grounds, such as the impact on residential amenity and this is just their attempt to grind the local community into submission. We are not prepared to let that happen and we will be encouraging residents to again lodge further representations against McDonald's.”

McDonald's have lodge several controversial applications for a fast food take-away at the site of the White Bear pub in Tingley. Objections to the proposal topped the thousand mark as local residents cited problems with traffic generation, noise, litter and associated anti-social behaviour.

Cllr Judith Elliott said “We will continue to stand by local residents in their battle with this giant. This is the wrong location for such development and we will do everything in our power to make sure McDonald's do not win this appeal.”

Morley Elderly Action cash boost.

Morley Borough Independent Councillors are celebrating the decision to finance Morley Elderly Action for a three year project to provide gardening services for older and disable people who are unable to keep up to their gardens. The project, which provides a subsidised gardening service, was agreed at last Mondays Outer South Area Committee when councillors voted to support the project for the next three years.

Cllr Shirley Varley, who is a member of Morley Elderly Actions Management Board, said “This is good news for local pensioners. This scheme has operated very well over the last few years and hundreds of pensioners have been helped to keep their gardens manageable with the support of the scheme. This subsidised service has shown to be one of the best value for money schemes across the Leeds City Council area. I am delighted the amount of help and support we can give to pensioners will now increase.”

Councillors agreed the £32,000 package which will cover the Morley, Tingley and East Ardsley areas. Morley Elderly Action administers the scheme and use gardeners who have a good local reputation and are crb checked.

Cllr Tom Leadley said “We received numerous positive testimonials form pensioners who have been pleased with how the scheme has worked in the past. The project will now cover more hours which will mean more local residents will get the help they need to keep on top of their gardens.”

Campaign against Churwell Litter Louts

I have launched a campaign to crack down on fly tippers who are blighting a roadway in  Churwell. Local residents have raised their concerns about the high level of fly tipping that is blighting the Churwell section of Rooms Lane. We have had to spend thousands clearing this mess up. We need to look at ways of reducing this anti-social behaviour.

I have asked Leeds City Council to explore the options of blocking access to Rooms Lane as most of the fly tipping comes from litter louts dumping rubbish from the back of vans.

We cannot just continue clearing up this mess without seeking a permanent solution to these litter louts. This is an option we are exploring to see if blocking access is affordable and practical.

 

Owlers Farm campaign begins!

MBI Flyer opposing Owler Farm Development

Morley Borough Independent Councillors have commenced their campaign to prevent development on a greenfield site at Owlers Farm off Wide Lane in Morley. The large greenfield site has been proposed for housing development by Persimmons and local residents have raised their outrage about the application. Its our job to oppose it as fully as we can and a flyer will shortly be circulating encouraging residents to formally lodge objections to the proposal.

Readers of this blog will know that Morley Primary and Secondary Schools will be full by 2016 with children already living in Morley. The additional children this application will generate have nowhere to go to school if planning permission is granted. If we add to this the congestion on Wide Lane, the poor drainage and flooding record at this location and the inability of other infrastructure services - such as local health centres - to cope with this level of development then it is clearly an unsustainable site and contrary to the Governments new NPPF document.

Labour already seem to be throwing in the white flag and don't appear to want to battle with the Developers on this application. This is perhaps no surprise as local Labour Councillors - including Morley's only Labour City Councillor Neil Dawson - voted for the LDF and its targets of 7,000+ houses across Morley which can only be accommodated by ripping up our greenfield sites.

The need to rip up Morley Greenfield sites is questionable as Leeds City Council has already granted planning permission for over 21,000 housing units - mainly on brownfield sites - which have not yet been built. At an annual completion rate of less than 2000 units a year there is already enough planning permissions to cover present housing demand for over 10 years without disturbing a single blade of grass on any Morley greenfield site.

It will be interesting to see if Labour look both ways on this - voting for it at Leeds City Council while claiming to oppose it locally. We will see if Labour again capitulates to the Developers.

What this space!

Morley Fire Station - new campaign!

Morley Borough Independent Councillors have launched a new campaign aiming to block the introduction of staffing changes at Morley Fire Station which will mean no staff will be on site from 5pm at night through to 8am the following morning. This follows our successful campaign to prevent the closure of Morley Fire Station which was proposed by West Yorkshire Fire Authority late last year.

We have been regularly in touch with local firefighters and we share their concerns that daytime staffing will put local communities at risk. This will mean that should there be a fire incident or a road traffic accident between 5pm and 8am then Firefighters will not be on site at Morley Fire Station and will have to be called in from home. That would clearly put local communities and motorists at risk.

Figures provided to us show that West Yorkshire Fire Service has an additional £2.5 million to spend following the agreement to raise an additional £5 a year from council tax payers.

We have significant concerns about this new staffing structure and we believe that there has been no meaningful consultation around these new proposals. The last consultation closed before this new staffing arrangement was proposed. We are calling for meaningful consultations with local communities who will be put under threat by these arrangements.

We were to meet Firefighters at Morley Fire Station but the meeting was cancelled by Fire Chiefs without an explanation being offered. The Morley South Ward is regarded as high risk from fires by the Fire Authority. Morley Fire Station also covers the M62 and M621 corridor which has significant numbers of road traffic incidents.

This is almost like the closure of Morley Fire Station by stealth. It will be closed for 13 hours a day – over 50% of the time! We believe this will put local communities at risk. This decision can be reversed as new funding has been found which would allow the Fire Authority to continue with 24 hour a day staffing of Morley Fire Station.

We are due to meet the Fire Chief shortly and we will make sure we campaign hard to try and get this daytime staffing dumped!

RSS scrapped - a good news story!

The Regional Spatial Strategy - agreed by the last Labour Government - is abolished today. This is a good news story for Morley as the figures proposed within the RSS have been an albatross around our necks as we battled to retain  Morley Greenfield sites such as Daisy Hill.

Indeed the RSS figures were behind the Leeds City Council decision to stop fighting appeals against developer's lodging applications on Greenfield sites across Leeds. This was a flawed decision because the figures they proposed of over 3500 new housing units was always unrealistic and could only be delivered by building on Greenfield sites. This meant developer's avoided regenerating Brownfield sites as they flocked towards Greenfield ones as the City Council failed to have the backbone to do anything about it!

As it stands today there are no RSS figures and the questionable targets proposed by LCC of over 70,000 new homes - with 7000 plus coming to Morley - has no legal significance as the Plan has not been through a public examination yet.

This means we should have new hope for keeping Morley's Greenfield sites green. We will direct Developers to the 22,000 planning permissions already granted for housing on mainly Brownfield sites across Leeds along with the 10,000 plus homes empty across the city which need to be brought back into use. That's over 32,000 homes which at a completion rate of 2000 a year will mean we have enough land supply for housing to cover us until 2028.

In the finals analysis we have an option to hold on to most of Morley's Greenfield sites and focus development on Brownfield ones. The question is will Labour exercise this option?

Morley School Numbers Crisis

New figures released to the MBI group by Education Chiefs on Leeds City Council show that all Morley Primary and Secondary Schools will be full by 2016. This is based on projections of actual births and children who already live in the Morley area.

What do these figures mean? They mean that new developments - such as Daisy Hill and Bruntcliffe Road - will generate so many additional children for primary and secondary schools that they will be overwhelmed and unable to cope!

Presently all of Morley primary schools are two form entries apart from Asquith Primary and St Frances. Both Asquith and St Frances are proposed to be extended (by an additional 30 places at Asquith and by 8 up to 30 at St Frances.) Newlands goes to a three form entry when the new school (delivered by an MBI campaign) is built in 2014. Even with those schools expanded there will be 420 available school places and 427 children presently in the system by 2016. If you add an additional 100 to 150 kids from new developments from Daisy Hill and Bruntcliffe then it doesn't take a mathematical genius to see that there is no room available for these additional children.

Indeed at a meeting this week Education Chiefs confirmed that there is no other Primary school in Morley than can be expanded for these additional children. Morley is indeed full up!

Labour continue to bang additional housing burdens on Morley as they force through Daisy Hill and Bruntcliffe Road against substantial local opposition. They seem to like to play the game of Buckaroo - the game I played as a kid - when you keep loading a mule bit by bit until it bucks off the whole lot. That's what Labour does in Morley. It adds additional burdens to creaking infrastructure and doesn't give a toss if it can cope as long as they protect Labour areas from similar problems.

We will use this new information to campaign against future large scale housing developments. We will see if Labour will now listen to good sense - but don't hold your breath!