The Deal of the Decade

Or indeed for considerably longer but the cheap alliteration is to appealing. After a very Long fight Leeds City Council has agreed to transfer the former Headingley Primary School site ( on a 125 year lease) to a local residents cooperative. This is about as exciting an experiment in mutualism. The Headingley Development Trust ( HDT) will refurbish it as HEART ( Headingley Enterprise and Arts centre.) This blog could be accused of many things but it isn't partisan. However on this occasion its a distinctively liberal achievement and I'm particularly grateful to Greg Mulholland MP for all his support while others have abandoned hope. Of course HDT have actually done all the hard work we've just done what politicians do, spend other peoples money. However over coming very powerful opposition within the Development Department and a cultural aversion to community ownership from some people that should know betters has been a tough gig.

Its a qualified triumph. Headingley Community Centre will be shut and sold off and subsumed into a revised HEART. The existing Community Centre users have been offered a "triple lock". The same or better quality of rooms available. The trust will have to adhere to the Councils lettings pricing policy. The trust has to offer the Council a 25 year service level agreement. To stop it closing the new facilities the day the lease is signed.

Its a deal where everyone wins a bit. The Councils capital budget gets its pound of flesh from the sale of the centre and savings from non provision of the care taking function. The HDT gets a massive "Town Centre" site with enormous development and borrowing potential. The debate has focused on the school building but the play ground has potential. Affordable Housing? the public square that Headingley doesn't have?

I'm often melancholy about local politics but this is the culmination of nearly 4 years work and has delivered a massive shift of power and assets from the Council to the Community. A Central performance space, decent community cafe, affordable office accommodation and now community centre functions. All in a land mark building, the Civic Building that Headingley has never had. Local Councillors don't get memoirs so my particular role in the "laws and sausages" struggles behind the scene will have to wait. However if I have done a honest days work in my 8 years its chairing the Working Group on this issue this year. Nudging the trust and Council officers towards the perhaps inevitable compromise was rewarding but difficult.

Is this a done deal? No several things can still go wrong. 1. we can fail to find the refurbishment costs however I suspect that there is such political momentum behind the scheme now that this won't be allowed to happen. 2. The existing Community Centre users can reject the proposed deal over alternative facilities in HEART. Given sensitivity and robust safeguards i think they can be kept on board. 3. We can fail to slot in the final piece of the jigsaw, a replacement for the community coffee bar currently in the centre.

However I remain convinced that this is the single biggest event in Headingley politics for over 10 years. The hardest asset any community land trust ever achieves is its first one. I Shall be paying visits over the next few years and see what they achieve but my hopes are high.