Funeral

I have just arrived back from Julian Cummins Funeral. To resort to Cliche you really couldn't ask for a better send off than that. A quite beautiful service in a packed St Peter's Parish Church. Like all good funerals it was a celebration of the life rather than strict mourning and also it was about the living not the dead. Having only known Julian in his political role it was fascinating to see the many over lapping circles of his life. The Church, Politics, business, and development work.

The preacher gave everyone a moment of quiet to reflect on a time Julian and encouraged or empowered them. It was telling that in an audience of several hundred people that no one was struggling to do that.

The setting of Faure's Requiem had a kind of haunting beauty that enveloped everyone. I left with that typical mixture of sadness and hope that you get at such occasions.

" and do all such good works as thou hast prepared to us to walk in" as the Prayer Book said. If Julian was about empowering people then the best way of remembering him is to do that as as well. The good work that has been prepared for liberals everywhere.

Rev Dr Julian Cummins RIP

I was very sad to hear about Julian's sudden death. A former City Councillor for the Horsforth Ward and parliamentary Candidate for Pudsey, he had remained a very active liberal at regional level. I wouldn't claim to have known him well but he was always inspirational towards younger people in the party as well as being very generous financially.

I heard about his death during the prayers at St Michael's on Sunday night. Its quite jolting as familiar liturgy takes on a far more personal meaning as a name is read out. Although ill for a while I assumed he was past the worst and the death is sad as its so sudden. I'll spare everyone cliched reflections on how it makes me think... Just a thought about Julian, his intellect, his instinctive liberalism and generosity of spirit.

Junk Mail

For reasons I will explain shortly I have been counting the number of takeaway menus comming through my letter box since the beginning of the year. As of lunch time today it was 123 or just shy of 4 per day on average. With takeaways dominating the areas shopping frontages and a young, highly mobile population local operators have opted for an arms race approach to direct marketing. If you included all flyers then the totals would double.

This has quite rightly upset the "Independent" community news letter " Hurley Burley" ( Which ironically is a free flyer of a kind). The number of " No Flyer" signs on local letter boxes tells you the Irritation many people feel about this onslaught of Junk. Mine goes straight in the recycling bin. However Huley Burley feel they have approached local councillors asking what the Council is doing to stop this plague, and accuses us of not answering. Well they certainly haven't contacted me but I can tell them now.

Absolutely nothing. The law is something of an ass on this subject. We have used new powers under the Cleaner Neighbourhoods Act to set up one the countrys Flyering Control zones. This regulates street vendors handing stuff out. They need a licence and we can limit numbers. Its been quite successful at tackling the worst excesses of some night club promters especially at Freshers time. There are also the "Junk Mail" restrictions that I will set out below. However if Joe Bloggs wants to stick stuff through your door then he can.

Wether we should regulate takeaway menus is a moot point for a liberal. The waste of paper certainly hacks me off. However as Hurley Burley finds space to slag off local Councillors but not for practical infomation I'll list below some links to help people curb Junk Direct Mail. Any issues with street flyering can be emailed to cs.enforce@leeds.gov.uk

www.itsmypost.com has a variety of options some of which cost but also links to the free www.mpsonline.org.uk with details of the mail preference society scheme. Or alternatively you can email the royal mail on optout@royalmail.co.uk but this only covers directly addressed stuff.

Unity Day 2007

My history of links on this blog isn't good but try www.myspace.com/hydeparkunityday for infomation on previous events and how to get involved in this years event.

Unity day is completely apolitical but that doesn't stop me loving it dearly. It was born out of the Hyde Park "riots" of 1994 and a determination to show case what was good about the area. The subsequent onslaught of Landlordism and the " Bomb Factory" discovery after 7/7 in 2005 has made that task as vital as ever.

The real reason I love it though is the social alchemy it performs . Every year a battered and at times dwindling group of core activists combine with 10 times there number of "transient" residents to pull of a 12 hour £25k spectacular turning Woodhouse Moor into a carnival for the day. Local politics is dominanated by how to cope with the areas peculiar demographics. Without discussion Unity just does it. The event wouldn't happen, even in the middle of August, without students. Yet the posters cheeky " While the students are away the locals will play" acknowledges the tension.

Mainly due to the weather last years was " the best ever". A substantial and successful attempt was made to strenthen the community and childrens programme from 12 noon to 4 pm before the whole event slowly slides into a free music festival. Of course being residents led, apolitical, non corporate and free you will make enemies.

If I have done anything of any value in the 13 years I have lived here its using a Council position to stand up on occassions to Collegues and the Police who find the non traditional structures a bit frightening.


If you live locally use the link and get involved if you have the time to spare. When you stand in the centre circle of Woodhouse Moor on Unity Day at about 5pm you see (if the sun is out) why its all worth while. You might even call it the Republic of Hyde Park.

Area Committee

If anyone ever wonders why turnouts in Local Elections are so low and its difficult to get people of calibre to bother with local politics then they could look no further than last nights Area Committee meeting. Two major local issues were discussed ( The Great Student Run and Operation Apollo) but it was obvious for all to see that we are at times a talking shop. In both cases decisions which should be local have been taken centrally by senior officers and members. It was no better under the Labour Council but I wonder out loud how much is ever really going to change under this one.

But first for the good news. We had a short , productive and good tempered meeting which took excellent budget decisions. Having thrashed out the difficult issues at our previous budget seminar we approved a £140k of spending more or less on the nod. I will keep my promise to show case some good practice on this blog over the next few weeks. Better still we have refomed the whole budget process. In good liberal tradition we are devolving a big chunk of capital spending to the Wards. We have also introduced proper budget rounds which should go some way to rebalancing things between genuine grass roots community groups and central Council departments. The deadline for the first "round" of the new year is 29/3/07 so if any community group wants to email me about funding then they should do so on david.morton@leeds.gov.uk by the second week in March.

The discussion of "Operation Apollo" was a different Kettle of Fish. This is the code name given to a regular but far from frequent Community Safety initative. A selected area is hit for 2 or 3 days with just about everything. Fire , Trading Standards , Enviromental Health, Graffiti Busters, Parking Enforcement, Warrent Enforcement ASB team, High Visibilty Policing etc etc.

To date the areas allocation of resources for this scheme had been shared equally between the 4 local wards. In the last few days local councillors were presented with a Fait Accopli. The Hyde Park area will now get the Lions share of the resources in a more frequent scheme and the other areas are being down graded.

As the title of the blog suggests I live in and represent a part of Hyde Park and am a "winner" in this. I should probably keep my mouth shut but I think a more fundamental point than parochialism is at stake. The justification for the changes is that resources should be targeted at the areas with the highest crime rates. By which of course the Police mean "Volume" crime rates on which they are judged. I'm fundamentally opposed to this. "Apollo" has always been a broader Community Safety initiative tackling much low level disorder and more importantly fear of crime. These issues are very widely spread and now communities that need this help will get less because the system, at a subtle level, decides that Vandalism, Noise Nusiance etc aren't serious enough to concentrate on.

I'm also annoyed at the Intellectual incoherence of this. One really positive thing the "Rainbow" Coalition has done is ensure that our ( much increased) number of match funded PCSO's have been shared out equally per ward. Looking purely at recorded crime the Inner City would soak up nearly all the officers leaving the outer suburbs and market towns with a token presence. It was precisely the recognition that all areas need a visible presence and have neighbourhood issues to deal with that led to what I thought was a brave approach from the Council. Not so it seems with " Apollo".

Of course my actual point is that Community Safety functions have been devolved to Area Committees but clearly a major decison has been taken with no Consultation at all. Will we put up with this? Of course we will, which is why we have been treated like this in the first place.