Bye bye countryside

The green spaces and places of Leeds
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raveydavey
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Post by raveydavey »

Tucked away in the planning applications of the YEP last week were plans to "build 500 homes, plus retail and commercial premises" at "land adjacent to Grimes Dyke".So that will be goodbye forever to the open countryside to the east of Whinmoor, Swarcliffe and Crossgates and the end of Scholes (and possibly Thorner) being a village outside Leeds.I suspect this is related to the UDP and the "outer outer ring road" that has been mentioned before.A sad day and one that has had suprisingly little coverage.
Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act – George Orwell

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chameleon
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Post by chameleon »

raveydavey wrote: Tucked away in the planning applications of the YEP last week were plans to "build 500 homes, plus retail and commercial premises" at "land adjacent to Grimes Dyke".So that will be goodbye forever to the open countryside to the east of Whinmoor, Swarcliffe and Crossgates and the end of Scholes (and possibly Thorner) being a village outside Leeds.I suspect this is related to the UDP and the "outer outer ring road" that has been mentioned before.A sad day and one that has had suprisingly little coverage. This was a large part of the public enquiry into the Unitary Development Plan for the area Davey.Cutting a very long story short, the Inspector put the brakes on the immediate development back then, falling instead towards the continuing utilisation of Brown Field sites before (as is inevitable) encroaching into the Green Belt. Development here can not physically start before 2011.Surorisingly in the present climate the developers seem keen to start proceedings. There was recently a 'consultation evening' held at Fieldhead Carr School and hosted by a company calling themselves, idplanning http://www.idplanning.co.uk/There was prcious little information to be had about the matters which those of us in the area had concerns over, more I suspect, an event held to say one had been. As was suggested, I emailed these people (repeatedly) for additional information but have yet to receive even an acknowledgement from them, but then if you look at their website, that too seems still t be in the 'consultation' stage! Such an attitude does little to endear the developers to the local populas and with this degree of indifference at this stage, I wonder what we are in for.I gather, though consulting the application would seem necessary, that access to the development will be from one point only which is questionable in safety terms alone, and I believe this is to be situated in the area of the dip in York Road - or the vicinity -adjacent to the old entrance to Grimes Dyke Farm and, wait for it, controlled by traffic lights! Mayhem awaits. Those of you who now the area will be all too aware of it's rather dangerous presentation in traffic terms with many disatrous accidents over the years and indeed bad enough to warrant a number of speed (sorry, safety) cameras being installed. It is difficult to see how such an arrangement could even be considered.One other small point, the last inhabitant of the site levelled a large area adjacent to the psuedo spotted-path with a considerable depth of landfill including very large quantities of a familliar white substance which has been banned in totallity for some years now - that should prove interesting when excavation starts!Addition - had a look at the application on-line, for anyone interested, this should take you to the site plan:http://plandocs.leeds.gov.uk/WAM/doc/Dr ... ageCount=1    

Trojan
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Post by Trojan »

I used to live at West Ardsley - which I believe I've mentioned before. When I lived there there was a 1200 yard gap between our back fence and Chidswell water tower - visible from most parts of West Yorkshire - which is in Ossett and technically Wakefield. In the nineties, long after we left, there was strong pressure to develop this green belt for housing. Unfortunately the developer had deeper pockets than the council and they capitulated. Bye bye green belt between effectively the south western tip of Leeds Met and Wakey.    
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chameleon
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Post by chameleon »

This development is just the start of a sweeping arc of encroachment from Shadwell rond and down to Colton - and the Ring Road bypass will follow if not more likely, precede.

raveydavey
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Post by raveydavey »

I've had a look at those plans - thats a heck of a development, with only one route in and out - as you say directly into the dip on the single carriageway section of York Road just past the Old Red Lion where the spped cameras are.Traffic lights there would be an absolute nightmare, creating horrendous congestion - worse even that the lights that were put on York Road at the developemnt on the old Killingbeck Hospital site have done. Last year there were "off peak" temporary lights near this proposed access road whilst a gas main was laid and even then traffic was tailing back onto the Windmill roundabout - goodness knows what it would be like at rush hour?And as the site is so contained, there will be no public transport serving it, other than on York Road meaning that everyone will drive. 500 houses with 2 cars per house means an extra 1,000 cars onto York Road (plus whatever the retail, etc units generate). You can comments or object to these plans here:http://planningapplications.leeds.gov.u ... JB0FZ00The funny things is, less than a mile away the EASEL development has ground to a halt and the developer is resorting to applying for government money to build houses that no-one wants, even with the prices reduced by £20k+, so there is clearly no demand for private residential developments in the area.
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chameleon
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Post by chameleon »

raveydavey wrote: I've had a look at those plans - thats a heck of a development, with only one route in and out - as you say directly into the dip on the single carriageway section of York Road just past the Old Red Lion where the spped cameras are.Traffic lights there would be an absolute nightmare, creating horrendous congestion - worse even that the lights that were put on York Road at the developemnt on the old Killingbeck Hospital site have done. Last year there were "off peak" temporary lights near this proposed access road whilst a gas main was laid and even then traffic was tailing back onto the Windmill roundabout - goodness knows what it would be like at rush hour?And as the site is so contained, there will be no public transport serving it, other than on York Road meaning that everyone will drive. 500 houses with 2 cars per house means an extra 1,000 cars onto York Road (plus whatever the retail, etc units generate). If Highways were to approve an access there in any form, it would be little less than hypocrassy in terms of everything they purport to be required in the interests of safety of the travelling public.Perhaps we should all lodge formal complaints.One plus point, the application contains a wealth of information about the site in general which I am ploughing through with some relish!

raveydavey
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Post by raveydavey »

chameleon wrote: raveydavey wrote: I've had a look at those plans - thats a heck of a development, with only one route in and out - as you say directly into the dip on the single carriageway section of York Road just past the Old Red Lion where the spped cameras are.Traffic lights there would be an absolute nightmare, creating horrendous congestion - worse even that the lights that were put on York Road at the developemnt on the old Killingbeck Hospital site have done. Last year there were "off peak" temporary lights near this proposed access road whilst a gas main was laid and even then traffic was tailing back onto the Windmill roundabout - goodness knows what it would be like at rush hour?And as the site is so contained, there will be no public transport serving it, other than on York Road meaning that everyone will drive. 500 houses with 2 cars per house means an extra 1,000 cars onto York Road (plus whatever the retail, etc units generate). If Highways were to approve an access there in any form, it would be little less than hypocrassy in terms of everything they purport to be required in the interests of safety of the travelling public.Perhaps we should all lodge formal complaints.One plus point, the application contains a wealth of information about the site in general which I am ploughing through with some relish! Very true - I can see no way that traffic lights and a fairly major junction can be installed there without significant remodelling of the A64, which the developer reckons isn't needed. The traffic survey also laughably implies that people will walk the 10-15 minutes to Sherburn Road to catch a bus to town (via pedestrian only access onto the "inviting and overlooked" Whinmoor Way!), then further implies that York Road can be safely crossed at the nearby underpass - which is even further away at the Windmill Roundabout. It also looks like the traffic flow survey was at least in part done during the half term holidays and gives an average speed of traffic on York Road of 52 mph - in the 50 mph limit past the speed cameras??? Hmm...And finally (for now) if you delve deep enough into the application, you'll see that Metro have reserved land on the opposite side of York Road for an "aspirational" Park and Ride terminus.    
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chameleon
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Post by chameleon »

Clearly the easy access to travel is a statement designed to seel the application to the Council - it will of corse in practice lead to an increase of the already quite apparent use of Tesco's car park as a Park and Ride facility with residents taking the car that far.An earlier proposal some time ago was a roundabout at the development entrance as I recall - equally useless for getting out.According to the Association of Chief Police Officers, an offence occurs when travelling at excessive speed in relation to the limit.In order to allow for technical inaccuracies (primarily in the car speedometers it is said) excessive speed is described as the speed limit + 10% + 2 mph, these are the levels at which the cameras record/report. As we all know though, a large proportion of drivers seem to have little ides of the speed they are travelling at or in the case of York Road outwrds at that point, what the limit is. Speeds have certainly dropped with many reaching just a little over 40 (limit as you know is 50) and then breaking to 30 or so when they reach and see the camera - a good source of further accidents for those a little closer behind than they should be!

raveydavey
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Post by raveydavey »

One thing I forgot to mention is the flooding that has occurred in the dip in York Road several times in the last few years, which has been responsible for at least one serious collision where a car piled into the rear of a queue of traffic that had stopped because the road was under water. This perhaps suggests the folly of installing traffic lights there?Clearly sticking a load of concrete and tarmac down on the side of the valley that leads down to the beck isn't going to reduce the amount of surface run off, is it?And given that there are a load of new houses (250-ish) already built off Stanks Drive on the other side of York Road and that the next road bridge down (Barwick Road) is also prone to flooding and backing the beck up, clearly something would need to be done before any buidling work would make sense?
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chameleon
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Post by chameleon »

raveydavey wrote: One thing I forgot to mention is the flooding that has occurred in the dip in York Road several times in the last few years, which has been responsible for at least one serious collision where a car piled into the rear of a queue of traffic that had stopped because the road was under water. This perhaps suggests the folly of installing traffic lights there?Clearly sticking a load of concrete and tarmac down on the side of the valley that leads down to the beck isn't going to reduce the amount of surface run off, is it?And given that there are a load of new houses (250-ish) already built off Stanks Drive on the other side of York Road and that the next road bridge down (Barwick Road) is also prone to flooding and backing the beck up, clearly something would need to be done before any buidling work would make sense? You will see that they've used the Environment Agency's flood map for their assessment. Good as far as it goes but I presume recalling the widely publicised problems you speak of could be detremental to the success of the application as it stands.We know how much water can head in that direction during the all too frequent once in howeveroften downpours. On the plus side, I suppose having a newly constructed chanel (aka new estate road) could well assist in diverting the flow down hill the way nature takes it - through the estate to the beck. More interesting id they choose to culvert that point

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