The West Park Centre Report, Read Not All About It

The Russians closing the show!

Rick sent me the report on the West Park Centre. It's dull, and a short read. It seems deliberately bland and almost non-informative. I can't say that it explains why thousands of us had our lives turned upside down on November 5 [was that a good day to bury bad news?] and the weeks following as those of us based there desperately sought to rescue our possessions and our work lives from the armageddon that was surely our imminent electrocution!

Read all about it here:

http://democracy.leeds.gov.uk/documents/s86515/West%20Park%20Centre%20-%20Update.pdf

a small concert from the hall balcony 

We, who have worked at and from the centre for years have always been proud to keep this former school alive, and pleased to preserve somewhere, built at a time when hall was really a hall with a stage and a balcony, and when a cupboard was a medium-sized office.


Architecturally, aesthetically, West Park doesn't have many claims to fame, compared, say, to a building like Royal Park School [detained for many years now at Assett Management's leisure], but when you compare it to the poor quality and poorly-designed holiday camp prison schools that are our pieces of PFI rubbish, West Park surely is a jewel.

this cupboard was full of art equipment

Words like functional, low key, unpretentious, convenient, welcoming, light and airy - spring to mind.

the foyer, the first thing you see, with Carole's kiosk at the end

stairway to Seminar Room, light and airy

Here's the initial reactions of ex-WP users and councillors:

1.  The report going to INACommittee on Thursday evening

 did not disclose any factor or fact that called for  immediate closure. These were  the  conditions identified in 2009. That is there was no new information which required closure.

That there is evidence which I have been promised but not yet received which indicates a pre-determination to close the Centre. This evidence when received will be published.

the figure required for re-opening are extreme and exaggerated.  A report by an electrical projects engineer  dated 8^th October 2012  gave a breakdown of the costs of dealing with the electrics  which in his words were : In summary the installation requires renewing;  the that the report  includes a list of things to be done which do not need doing.

The report does not give any figures indicating the cost of this sudden closure nor  does it explain why there have been many visits to the Centre  by many individuals who should not have been allowed to enter a structure so dangerous it had to be closed immediately without warning.  Indeed the day after the panic closure a large group of Russians were allowed to use the Centre as normal despite the imminent  danger suggested. For this reason  I ask that this Report be not received until these inconsistencies have been cleared up. B 

2. . .  if the centre was such a death trap all these years, who was responsible for the well-being of those within it?  I would suggest this represents gross negligence on the party responsible and would be very interested to know who it was.. G

3. . My thought precisely. They can not have it both ways. Either it is safe and should not have been closed or it is unsafe and has been unsafe for years and someone has allows lives to be endangered. I want to know which is the truth. L

4. Read it but not really any wiser. D

packing vans in the carpark