City of Leeds Public Consultation not quite Public Enough

When is a public consultation not a public consultation? Answer, when the public don't know about it. 

This is best done by private academy consultation company, Artelia, who used similar methods at Heath Hayes Primary School, in Staffordshire, as they are trying it on at City of Leeds School.

The only piece of advertising for this public consultation in public was in the North Leeds News, a local newspaper with intentionally a small circulation. Sadly, the date given of the public meeting was inaccurate, so the very few who were readers weren't given a chance to attend. 

City of Leeds School has, for decades, attracted its students from all round Leeds, in particular, but by no means exclusively, from those areas at the other end of the No 1 bus route: Beeston and Holbeck, and also, Harehills, Chapeltown and East End Park. Were their local papers not considered worth contacting?

At the school Reception there was a little display of the academy proposal fliers, but this is a high school. Students are either dropped off in cars or make their own way.

The only  parents waiting in reception tend to be the Polish speaking, Polish reading parents, waiting to enrol their children (yes increase the numbers on roll, and in all different school years). Not only Polish, of course, but you get the point -  new parents, whose interest in and understanding of the intricacies of UK education system will necessarily be restricted to - can my children come here?

In my opinion, if, as it said on the natty little green and white document, our "views are important to us", if this true, and if you have the money to employ this private firm, with its Sevenoaks' office address, then you have money to take an advert out in the Yorkshire Evening Post. Or even do a press release to the local tv and radio stations, as well as the local papers.

If you do get hold of the document, the middle section is turquoise green, most writing in black, fairly hard to read. At least the important contact details were on a different colour! Sadly that colour is red. Now that is unreadable. As are the words: Consultation ends at 9a.m. On 30th January 2014. 9 a.m!

At the most recent Anti-Acadmies Alliance AGM, we found out that Artelia used the same tactics at Heath Hayes - lack of proper publicity, same hard to read colour scheme etc. All a bit shabby, all a bit can't really be bothered. 

This fight is for City of Leeds to lose. And, if Artelia loses it, well, there's plenty more schools in deprived areas, and the more traumatised immigrants [I'm simplifying here!] they get, the worse the academic results, and hey presto - it's the school that under-performing! And, all the good teachers must have left! 

Three years ago, City of Leeds School became the first UK School of Sanctuary. No mention of this anymore; and the sign outside the gates, long since taken down.

Leeds to be Cultural Capital?

Thanks to Yorkshire Evening Post for printing my letter [20 December 2013]:

I see that Leeds is planning to to bid to be cultural capital (YEP 5 Dec). I am looking at the things that Leeds has been losing, and I am wondering exactly what it still has to offer.

The article mentions the West Indian Carnival, Henry Moore Institute and Opera North HQ. but this town, my adopted home town, seems to be a sorry state. For a start, the skyline from the motorway is a guastly mash-up of toy town designs, including the infamous Bridgewater. Beautiful Victorian buildings, like Royal Park are demolished; hideous PFI schools proliferate; Leeds has become a centre of shopping centres.



East Steel at YAMSEN:SpeciallyMusic Town Hall Concert

But I would most certainly support this bid, with a few provisos: that the culture should include us all. For a start I would give the orchestras, choruses and special needs music charities their homes back, either at the West Park Centre, or on its present site, or somewhere equally suitable. The YAMSEN:SpeciallyMusic Christmas Concert, playing its 30th concert last week at the Town Hall, is certainly a cultural asset to be celebrated.

For a second I would examine Leeds West Indian Carnival a bit more closely. The only live band in the procession is its own steel band. No other live acts - samba bands, djembes, or marching  bands from any other cultures get a look in, and my own steelbands (Foxwood, Sparrows etc) were banned three years ago, on the grounds that a live band might provoke a riot! Leeds Silver Sparrows played London Southbank two years ago to celebrate the Festival of Britain. Foxwood wowed Wonderland this weekend on Briggate. Alas they were not considered worthy to pay their own home town carnival!

Foxwood Steel at Leeds Waterfront Festival 2013

In other cities, Liverpool and Cardiff for example, they have reconsidered what Carnival means to their cities, and reinvented them, bringing in acts from more recent immigrants to reflect their cultural diversity. Huddersfield, for example has renamed its carnival "Huddersfield Carnival" and is setting about becoming more inclusive, without losing its West Indian roots. 

So, by all means apply to be the centre of culture, but first let's have a good inwards look at ourselves.


Sparrows play Festival of Britain at London Southbank July 2011

Victoria Jaquiss FRSA

Hyde Park Leeds

Meanwhile back in Hyde Park, there has been a murder this weekend in Brudenell Road. Connected with some party in Ash Grove that was still going on at 8.30 am. Well, for a start, who on earth thinks it's a good idea to party while the rest of get the sleep we need for the day ahead. The students who come to live in Hyde Park because they think it's partyland need to realise that, besides the anti-social element to their activities, they put themselves at risk - from all types of predators.

This is a very sad event that tarnishes our community, and will put parents off letting their student-children from living here. Landlords, beware of how you sell this area, or you, too will be the losers.

West Park Centre, one year later

This proposed demolition of West Park Centre and the continued homelessness of Leeds top amateur orchestras and chorus, and Special Needs music charities, if nothing else, could damage Leeds and Leeds Council's reputation as a thriving city. After all it's not just about commerce and shopping.

They have exaggerated the state of the building out of all proportion, and it remains the best sized and best placed building with the most facilities.









That it is the only arts centre of its kind in Leeds, and being inclusive [from top quality players to cutting edge special needs music education] makes the hostility of the powers-that-be
baffling. 

We have put in our complaint to the Ombudsman, and are daily expecting their judgment. However, it took the Council less time to condemn the building, than the Ombudsman has taken to respond. Looks like the latter has put some thought into it, whereas . . . Well, we hope that it's worth the wait.

Or perhaps it is all about the shopping. 

 

The Strangeness of Scrutiny

Well, Diane and I [in our capacity as YAMSEN:SpeciallyMusic committee members] went to the first Scrutiny meeting in August, and then a month later Lorraine [Musical Ark] and I attended the next one. We represented both our own charities and the orchestras and choruses etc.

Besides being teachers of music for children and adults with Additional [Special] Needs, the three of us are also academics [as in, we write books and articles, and I seem to write an awful lot of letters and blogs these days.]  and it was frustrating not to be able to counter some of the council officers' and the councillors' arguments.

What was strange was that we could give our five minutes' worth of speech, then we had to listen to councillors, and sometimes council officers debating the issues without giving us a chance to correct the incorrectness of some of the assumptions. We were thus, junior partners in the debate, yet as West Park users of sixteen years, we knew rather more about some parts of the situation than anyone else round the table.

On 17 September 2013, ten months after we were evicted from our home of many years, I thought that Scrutiny was going to examine the correctness of the procedures that led to our homelessness, and how we were rehoused, or not, in the ensuing months. But no, we were filibustered and sidetracked into a childish and facile account, certainly not a debate, of the value of the various health and safety reports, concluding that it was almost certain that someone would have been electrocuted had the centre not been closed when it was, and even that maybe it should have been closed sooner.

[Now, as a Russian graduate and sometime reader of Gogol, I had met this stuff in a previous life, and was rather surprised to be taking part in this little charade a century or so later.]

The word, "repairs" didn't feature at all in this debate.

There was hardly any time to consider what happened to the ex-users, because we treated to this rambling story of health and safety reports, with a total lack of academic rigour, and sometimes scant regard for the truth. [eg, someone, I can't recall whom, told the meeting that YAMSEN:SpeciallyMusic had rejected the offer of storage space at the warehouse at Domestic Street, preferring to store instruments in their own houses. Actually, YAMSEN:SpeciallyMusic did store equipment at this depot, but not being given our key for it till June 2013, and it being next to the Armley Gyratory it was/it is not an easy place to use. Anything being used on a regular basis did have to live in volunteers' homes. And I have to say that the novelty does wear off.

The worst thing about the marimbas is that you can't stack anything on top of them; whereas steelpans can be quite neatly set up behind the sofa.

Centre's Users Still Homeless

Thanks to Yorkshire Evening Post:

YEP Letters: September 30

Published on the 30 September
2013
11:59

                                                    Centre’s users still homeless

 

I ATTENDED Scrutiny Board as a witness to the senselessness of the closure of the West Park Centre. No rolling stones, here at West Park, we had gathered moss. From indie video companies and talking newspapers for the blind, to 100- strong orchestras and choirs.
Here all the synergy that you ever wish you could plan for had already happened. Forty odd permanent centre users filled the place up every week, Plus all the regular bookings - council training courses in child-protection, first aid etc.
One councillor said he had visited the centre twice, and once, he had to step over a puddle to get in.
Twice! What was my 16 years’ experience against someone who had visited the place twice! Why did the orchestras come 
back week after week for decades?
But, under the West Park floor boards was the Wormtail of an electric system hissing its evil way around, and every so often they would open the grates and say, ooo, that needs fixing, and close the grates again.
Perhaps to keep us off the topic the spokesperson from Asset Management seemed to filibuster her way through 20 minutes including mentioning that she had been off sick for a while.
Why? They condemned the person who spared Leeds’ blushes by telling the Russians to go ahead with their event, when anyone might have made the same decision.
What they did not do at Scrutiny was consider the fate of the displaced users, still homeless 10 months later: and that organisations only given half a loaf would eventually starve; that charities with no base for so long would eventually go into melt down.

Victoria Jaquiss FRSA, YAMSEN:SpeciallyMusic, West Park Centre Campaign Group

Thanks to Jonathon Brown for this article on Tuesday 3 September 2013

Axe blow that left Leeds centre’s charities reeling in shock

The West Park Centre.

03 September 2013

Nine months after the dramatic closure of a hub for arts groups and charities in north west Leeds, the search for answers continues as the aftershocks of its loss are felt. Jonathan Brown reports.

As demolition looms over a once buzzing centre for the arts, questions still remain over the controversial closure of the West Park Centre.
After it closed as West Park County Secondary School in 1989, the building became an unorthodox but fitting home to dozens of Leeds’s most creative and artistic groups and charities.
Thousands of the city’s most talented groups have roots there and it provided a base for the likes of Opera North and the Northern Ballet.
Years of rumours of impending closure and numerous campaigns had kept it open until it was hastily closed in November because of electrical problems.
Yet, the following day, a party attended by the then Lord Mayor of Leeds, Coun Ann Castle, was held at the site.
The swift closure, which was carried out within 24 hours of officers being alerted to the building’s safety, left several arts groups and charities effectively homeless.
Nine months on, the Yorkshire Association for Music and Special Educational Needs (YAMSEN) is just one of a group of organisations without a place to call home and deliver services.
Diane Paterson, secretary of YAMSEN, a charity that supports music groups for disabled adults and children, said: “It’s been devastating.
“We won’t let things stop, we have carried on as that’s the nature of the group of people we have here.
“When somebody does that to you and pulls the plug on you – you can’t plan for that.
“None of the charities are the sort of people that will be put off by this, they are just working ten times as hard and getting more stressed.”
Its thousands of users come from all over the region to use the 34-year-old charity’s specialist equipment – much of which is now inaccessible and based in storage units and schools across the city.
YAMSEN spent thousands of pounds of grant money on an Indonesian gamelan instrument, which was handmade in Java, to help with sensory sessions in 2008, while they installed an advanced sound and light room at the West Park Centre. Both have ended up dismantled in storage as a result of the closure.
Victoria Jaquiss, vice chair at YAMSEN, said: “I think it makes Leeds look stupid, we have a big new arena so we are catering for the top end but we do not cater for the people that have given their evenings away for free.”
Elsewhere Fiona Kirkby, choir coordinator at the celebrated 150-piece Leeds Festival Chorus, says the group was left homeless three weeks before it was due to perform in the council-organised Leeds International Concert Season.
Now based at St Chad’s Parish Church, in Headingley, the choir is having to cope without the space it needs.
Fiona, who has worked with the choir for 30 years, said: “We are resourceful people so we will try and keep on going but we are facing uncertain times.”
Groups based at the centre were initially told it would close temporarily for four months, while the associated costs and work to bring it back into use were assessed.
In January councillors were told that emergency work on the West Park Centre’s electrical and hot and cold water systems, would cost more than £930,000.
Lorraine Cowburn is a musician and project manager with the Musical Arc charity, which was moved to Meanwood Community Centre within four days of the West Park Centre’s closure.
Following the outcry surrounding its closure, the circumstances and processes behind it will be discussed by the council’s sustainable economy and culture scrutiny board on September 17.
Lorraine, who plans to attend the meeting, said: “It’s like rehousing a family in different houses, it doesn’t work and that community of people that formed the West Park Centre happened by accident over the years. It ended up being an arts centre and that’s what’s been lost.”
The council’s executive board agreed to demolish the centre in July, having agreed to release £800,000 from the sale of the land to build a new community centre or invest in existing buildings to aid some of the centre’s former users if needed.
No date for the West Park Centre’s demolition has yet been set.
It is thought the land is worth around £2m and it is suggested it could be developed for housing or a free school, though further assurances are being sought over the council’s plans to continue to help former users.
Leeds North West MP Greg Mulholland said: “The West Park Centre has been a popular and vital cultural and community hub for many years and it is simply not acceptable that this important role comes to an end, especially when there simply are not adequate replacement facilities for the organisations who used the centre or the local community.”
Coun Judith Chapman (Lib Dem, Weetwood) described the closure of the centre as the “end of an era”. She said: “It’s putting a bit of strain on all the area’s other venues.
“People have lost this facility which is a terrible shame and also it was used for community purposes as well and that has gone.”
Various charities and organisations formerly based at the centre are working from home, halls, community centres and scout huts.
A council spokeswoman said: “We have already ensured that the great majority of groups have been re-located to other locations and we will be working with any other groups that used the centre to help them find new permanent locations.”
The spokeswoman added: “A great deal of work has taken place since the West Park Centre was closed in November to determine the best option for the site and the centre. We have listened to a wide range of views and considered all possible options.”