In accordance with paragraphs 4.16 and 4.17 of the Community Committee Procedure Rules, at the discretion of the Chair a period of up to 10 minutes may be allocated at each ordinary meeting for members of the public to make representations or to ask questions on matters within the terms of reference of the Community Committee. This period of time may be extended at the discretion of the Chair. No member of the public shall speak for more than three minutes in the Open Forum, except by permission of the Chair.
Minutes:
In order to facilitate the Open Forum whilst Community Committees were being held remotely, the process had been adapted so that members of the public were able to submit written representations in advance of the meeting on any matter which fell within the Committee’s terms of reference.
The following submissions had been made:
Sylvia McLellan:
· Do you have any plans for dealing with broken glass and graffiti around Ash Road area?
· Are there plans to start charging students Council Tax …due to continual amounts of rubbish left?
· Is there a possibility of parking permits for residents who live around the stadium area?
In response it was reported that with regards to broken glass this needed to be reported and Cleansing would be able to clear this up. The Universities did ask students to be responsible but not all these problems may be related to students.
There had been an Anti-Graffiti Group meeting and one would be held again as soon as possible. The police had been involved and some arrests had been made and not all culprits were local. There were some obstacles and time delays in getting graffiti removed including getting the permission of landowners/homeowners where it was on private property.
The issue of Council Tax for students was central government policy and not under the control of the Council.
Parking permits would be re-visited when a formal public meeting could be held. There were many complex issues to review.
Sam Mustafa:
· What can be done to deal with anti-social behaviour from HMOs and flats?
· Landlords do not enforce action, University doesn’t take effective action, LASBT Overwhelmed
· Resident health and wellbeing is suffering
In response it was reported that there was a lot of ongoing work with the Universities, Student Unions, the Council and the police. Issues had worsened due to the pandemic and closure of bars. The universities had funded extra patrols in the area. There had been fines and fixed penalty notices issued. People suffering from persistent noise disturbance could request noise monitoring equipment that would assist in providing evidence of anti-social behaviour.
Yacob Ahmed (There had also been several other submissions regarding the Low Traffic Neighbourhood Scheme in Headingley and Hyde Park) :
· The introduction of the LTN comes at great detriment to the wellbeing of the community, and is detrimental to emergency response time
· Thorough and effective consultation is required for such radical changes , not via website
· Everyone’s needs have not been considered
· MPs (Benn, Sobel) were not considered ,
· Petition of 1000 signatures to reverse the LTN changes
Headingley and Hyde Park Ward Councillors responded and informed the meeting that they had done a walking tour of the area and had upcoming meetings with Highways to see what could be amended. There had been a two to three month consultation in the lead up to this scheme and these were legal traffic orders that would take some time to amend. It was advised to submit comments via the Connecting Leeds website.
Further issues highlighted included the consultation of emergency services and consultation with community and faith groups.
It was requested that Little London and Woodhouse Councillors be kept involved with any further discussions.