Open Letter to Station Commander Nigel Kirk

Nigel, 

I think I need to clarify some issues around the situation regarding the application I submitted to have Gipton listed as an historic asset.  And perhaps I should emphasis at this point the listing has gone in under my personal name and address so I take full responsibility for it. 

I am part of a group who call themselves COVEN – Community Organisation for Viable Environments Neighbourhoods based in East End Park Leeds, our site is here HERE  

Up to June 2011 I was the co-opted community representative on the inner east area committee, so I received the papers for and attended every meeting of the IEAC . And when I lost my seat in June 2011 I made it very clear I would continue attending the meetings and when “allowed” I would participate in the discussions.  I believe in local democracy being very much participative hands on activity! 

When I read the papers in October 2011 which presented the case for the IRMP in which the business cases for the closure of both the stations at Gipton and Stanks were laid out, I studied them with interest. In part because I was brought up very much in the bosom of the old Huddersfield Fire Brigade as my father and brother were fire fighters  and secondly because over the 10 years I have lived in East Leeds I have watched what was left of the old community  infrastructure be stripped away by the local authority. 

Apart from that I am an informatics business manager whose day to day stock in trade is reading and authoring documents such as business plans; and in my “expert” opinion these two had some serious holes in them.  So knowing little of fire and rescue but being an active trade unionist I did what I thought best - I emailed the West Yorkshire Fire Brigades Union and asked for their professional opinion.  And the result of all that was getting to know David Williams. My introduction to Andy Killingbeck was purely an accidental one. Cllr Ralph Pryke who had up to the April been a member of the fire authority forwarded to me an email he had written to Ralph on the subject of the proposed closures. Me being me,  as he seemed a like minded soul I emailed him  and I also discovered via Dave he had been the FBU membership secretary  prior to his retirement. 

I would like to think we gave Simon Pilling & Co a run for their money, as far as Gipton and Stanks is concerned anyway, but the vote went in favour of the cuts. And after a couple of weeks of licking my  wounds  I started to think of alternative ways of keeping Gipton inparticular, open and operational.  It was a chance “rant” at a completely unassociated meeting when it was suggested to me by a member of the Leeds Civic Trust  - Jim Brettell, that even an application to English Heritage would   throw a large and hungry cat into WYFRSs pigeon loft at Birkenshaw.  At this point I emailed Dave and Andy and suggested it and got a “yes, we have nothing to lose” back from them both – it was worth a go. At this point way back in January   I genuinely thought we had about a 10% chance of success. 

We cheered up considerably when for a simple £8 fee we downloaded her details from the land registry as it referred to a deed of covenant from 1914 restricting the sale of alcohol on the premises – she had some history at last!  Andy and I set ourselves the not inconsiderable task of finding out all about her. We spent hours in the local history library reading old watch committee reports, made several trips to the archives at both Wakefield and Sheepscar to read original documents and brushed up on our local political  history all in an effort to discover Giptons  past. 

As to the photos – well Sam Hirst is a member of COVEN has a keen interest in both old buildings and local history so he was introduced to Andy and they went into Gipton on a Sunday with the consent of Tony Head. It was agreed that the pictures would be used for the 75th Birthday Party which Andy was by then on the organising committee for. 

By August we were good to go with the application but it was pointless just submitting it and seeing what happened. All of us involved feel that the brutal cuts in provision are irresponsible and that WYFRA should explore different avenues instead of the straight and very narrow path they seem to be on at the behest of Simon Pilling, and when the 2012 /13 IRMP was announced we seized the opportunity for publicity to promote our anti cuts stance.  Giptons 75th Birthday was the perfect day to announce what I had done. 

Had I had my way I would have turned up to Gipton with local film crews from ITV and the BBC and anywhere else I could muster,   but Andy insisted we respect the privacy of the party. But from my years of campaigning I do have a decent list of press contacts and I used those to get publicity for our cause.  The BBC pre empted us though by announcing what we had done early on Saturday morning.  After that I wasn't even sure I would be allowed in to give you the cake but I was ushered straight through. Andy did try to tell you about it in advance by printing off the page from the net.

From what I can gather you seem to think Dave, Andy and I spent hours huddled in corners hatching plots- this is far from the truth. In fact, amazing as it may seem,  I had never seen Andy and Dave together until we were stood in the yard  last week. And at that point we did not know that Monday morning we would have press beating a path to our door, we got much better coverage than I had ever anticipated. But I am damn glad we did – if it brings the cause of the fire fighters to a wider audience I most certainly will not complain. No other members of your staff were involved at all, but how we kept it a secret i will never know.

Surely you can understand why Andy and Dave were complicit in what I did? Do you really want to see the fire service that is already stripped to the bone pared down further? Can you say hand on heart you like giving heavily weighted reports to Councillors that make everything out to be rosy  when anybody with half a conscience can see that these cuts will mean people die unnecessarily?  

Andy &  David have seen in their professional capacity what fire can do, to both property and people. There is no way on earth any member of the public can thank them and their colleagues enough for the dirty, dangerous and horrible job they do.  For the job that you do too.  

If you can say hand on heart that you want Gipton to close and the viscous cuts in services be implemented and Gipton to perhaps be demolished and replaced by yet more uninspiring square boxes some people have to call home; or worse that she is sold to a disreputable property developer and is left to rot as was the former library on York Road then I will apologise publicly and unreservedly for what i am trying to do.  

If you can say truthfully that the fire and rescue service after it is decimated by the past, present and future rounds of cuts  will not result in people dying I will become passive voter, buy a TV and go and watch soaps all evening instead of rolling my sleeves up and getting stuck in. 

If you can do both of the above, then I am afraid you value your job and position in WYFRS more than the truth and my  communities well being. Your predecessor Tony Head stood by the courage of his convictions and for that has my utmost respect. As do David Williams and Andy Killingbeck – it would have been the easiest thing in the world for them to stand back and let me do this alone but they have  taken joint responsibility for my actions. If we succeed in knocking some sense into the heads of the fire authority in regard to keeping Gipton operational I will be pleased, getting her listed will be a bonus.

But whatever happens , I get the best deal of all out of this – the gift of friendship from Andy and Dave, because regardless  of all the discussions, debates and “what ifs” of the past 9 months I can now call them my true friends,  and friendship is fortunately something politicians can’t ruin.

Regards
Sarah  

Anybody wanting to read the firecutscostlives site just click HERE

A Potential Life Changing Event !

Over the past few months we have been posting information about the closure of our local fire stations at Gipton and Stanks.

And of course the fire service have been issuing propaganda about how home fire checks save lives etc, and how they intend to reduce the risk of our local area from VERY HIGH to HIGH in just one year.

A task frankly we think is unacheivable without some serious massaging of figures, but we know that WYFRS are experts at manipulation as last year the figures they published for GIpton were to say the least INACCURATE !!!! and at the most obscenely MISLEADING!!!!

But every now and then the karma fairy comes along and gives our  campaign a lift, brightens our day and makes us chuckle.

 

Tuesday evening at 6.38pm a very important 999 call was received by the Fire Service - from the Fire Service to report that their MAIN STORES, a large building (20m x 40m) was on fire at their headquarters in Birkenshaw.

Four units attended from  Cleckheaton, Odsal, Morley and Batley to contain the blaze.

Now correct me if i am wrong - but i would have thought that West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue would surely adhere to the highest standards of store management and safety procedures to ensure that risk of fire is kept to a minimum.

But ACCIDENTS HAPPEN........ and FIRE KILLS. 

This was a store room, but regardless of home safety checks, smoke alarms and general stuff like unplugging electrics etc ACCIDENTS HAPPEN and as long as nobody was hurt a store really isnt that important.

BUT accidents occur at home too, and a house fire is a serious and sometimes life changing event

- you can go from ALIVE  to DEAD  really quickly!!!!!

999 - Gets the Fire Brigade in 4 Minutes

I have been trying to work out how I could introduce the plans to close our local Inner East Fire Stations at Gipton and Stanks back into the COVEN blog without  seeming to sound like a broken record and an obsessed mad woman. Fortunately fate has offered me an opportunity to let rip and explain again why closing a very high risk station like Gipton and its medium risk partner at Stanks is wrong  and a badly thought through idea.

Last night (Monday 9^th July) at about 8:20pm I noticed a youth go into the bin yard across the road from my house and do the strangest thing. He took a bag of rubbish out of the bin! So I kept watching and he took another bag of rubbish out of the bin, and then put his hood up. As we are constantly told at our local PACT meetings to note the clothes potential suspects wear etc I grabbed my camera and tried to take a picture “discreetly” from round the curtains. By this time another older man had joined the hooded  youth and was watching whilst the youth was still in the yard with his hood up. 

By now I had decided that something distinctly dodgy was going on so I turned to find my phone with the intention of dialling 101 and reporting the suspicious activity to the local police. However when I turned back to the window black smoke was billowing up and the people had gone. So instead I dialled 999 and asked for the fire brigade. After a few questions – was the fire near houses, was there stuff nearby to that might catch fire they said an engine had been dispatched.

By now a few neighbours had come outside as the culprits had put rubbish behind a double mattress, leant the mattress up against the wall to make a tent, and put two black bins leaning against the mattress and it was smoking badly, nasty black tarry smoke.

At this point I would like to have said I leaped over the wall in a single bound – but I didn’t I ran round the long way as the yard entrance was in the next street and pulled the bins away so they didn’t catch fire.  Then other neighbours chucked water on the fire and tipped the mattress away from the wall, we made quite a good team to be honest.

The fire engine arrived and the fire fighters damped down the mattress and made everything safe. The entire incident was over in probably 7 minutes, with the minimum of damage and nobody hurt.

The binyard wall after the mattress was removed

BUT>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 All of the above took place when we have a fire station - properly staffed and resourced at Gipton which got to East End Park in FOUR MINUTES.

In about a couple of years time if things go according to WYFRS plans we will not have a fire station 4 minutes away from East End Park  – but  nearly two  miles (and several sets of junctions and traffic lights) further up York Road. And instead  of having three engines at our disposal – 2 at Gipton and 1 at Stanks we will only have two based at probably South Seacroft by the police station. And they won’t be getting to us in 4 minutes but nearer to SEVEN.

In fact by then a bin fire will probably not even warrant a proper engine turning out – it will be a Fire Response Unit (FRU) which are basically transit vans equipped for putting out small fires.

How small is small – about as long as a piece of string I reckon !!!!!  

A outside mattress fire is probably small, a mattress with two bins laid on top is nearer a bonfire, and next to housing is a disaster waiting to happen.  According to the Fire Brigades Union sending an FRU can be a disaster. For a start we wont have an FRU in our area - it will be based at MOORTOWN. And this unit will not be just for our area but for the entire District of Leeds. It is only able to deal with small fires and if it cannot cope - or more likely in my opinion the fire had spread to other areas it will be of little or no use when it eventually arrives and will have to immediately call for back up.

So if last night  we hadnt got the bins away and the fire out ourselves, in four minutes when Gipton arrived there would have been a decent sized fire right next to a house.( i have experienced bins going up before they burn furiously)  In the future had i rang to say a mattress was on fire - an FRU would have been sent, hopefully from Moortown, but if it was elsewhere in the city because of an ongoing call out  it would have to come from further away.

I only moved the bins because i considered it safe to do so. If there had been even an ounce of doubt for my safety from flame or smoke inhalation i would have let them burn and left it to the professionals;  and fortunately at the moment those fire fighters will arrive at my door within in four minutes - but with the cuts in service and stations agreed by a LABOUR  controlled fire authority are allowed to take place, small binyard fires may lead to tragedies. Fires think big but most fires start small and ones like this started by arsonists are neither predictable or preventable.

Bins -  be they black, brown or green are extremely replaceable - peoples lives aren't. And i wouldn't harp on about this continually unless i genuinely hand on heart thought that the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue proposals to reduce fire fighter headcount and engine provision was extremely unresponsible and downright dangerous.

The mattress after only being on fire for approx 3 mins.

I reiterate what i said at the beginning - Gipton is a low cost - very high risk station, in these times of austerity and belt tightening why close her.  I think perhaps it is time for the community of East Leeds to commence lobbying again to ensure that we keep our local stations and fire fighters at a decent strength  - how councillors can cut public sector jobs whilst wasting millions on Private Finance Initiatives is beyond me. 

Perhaps we can start by demanding to be allowed to celebrate her 75th Birthday in October - as it stands at the momement it is a private party - well COVEN will be sending them a birthday cake to help the party go with a swing,  but it seems to me if WYFRS weren't ashamed of what they are doing they would throw open their doors and show the public what a magnificent piece of architecture she is and celebrate 75yrs of history with the community.

A letter to my dead father...why I am voting liberal democrat tomorrow.

Dear Dad,

I think I need to explain publically why tomorrow Thursday 3^rd May 2012 you are going to turn in your grave, as I your only daughter am going to VOTE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT in the local elections.

You brought me up in a fairly left wing working class household; my roots have always been deeply embedded in the ethos of socialism, unions and the labour party and that’s all thanks to you. And although you wouldn’t have said anything I know you would be deeply hurt even now if I betrayed those guiding principles that you have brought to my life, from childhood to now entering my middle years aged 50 and a grandma. (you would be so proud she is called Melody and has curly hair like me)

But I now have to put those feelings aside, because if you lived where I do dad, you wouldn’t vote labour either. I am very fortunate,  I live where I do by choice, and if I decided  to could  up sticks and move pretty much anywhere I fancied within reason. I have a good job, decent income and only myself to really worry about.  I don’t even think as yet I am in what the “labour party” call the “squeezed middle”, I probably spend more a week on coffee and lunch that many families in my area have to exist on in a week.  But every day in East End Park in Inner East Leeds I witness poverty, deprivation and despair! And the thing is when I naively voted in the past two local elections for labour candidates it was with the belief and optimism that they would fight for change and improvement, not allow my community to fall further into decline. Oh how I got that one wrong, big style............

You would be pleased to know that I am as you always taught me to be, active in the community in which I live. In the past four years I have attended every local community forum meeting and every Inner East Area Committee. Which is more than any of our current or past councillors can say! And watching and participating in those meetings has opened my eyes wide to the lies and lengths the two existing labour councillors Ron Grahame & Asghar Khan will go to, to keep the labour party happy, toe the party line and not give a toss about their constituents or understand the effect their collective actions will have on the ordinary people of Burmantofts and Richmond Hill.

You were a fireman dad, a Fire Brigades Union member and very proud to be one – so I shall start by explaining why I won’t vote labour because of way Ron and Asghar treated my local fire fighters.

In October 2011 I read the fire authority’s business case for the closure of Gipton and Stanks fire stations resulting in the loss of 24 full time posts and massive cuts in cover and provision. It stank (no pun intended) to high heaven so I got in touch with the Fire Brigades Union and asked their opinion. It was clear that the decisions made by WYFRA were calculated on the basis of reducing costs and not on the saving of lives and property. Cllr Grahame and Khan met with the FBU and by happy accident I attended that meeting. They both swore blind they would oppose the cuts and indeed the labour controlled inner East Area committee vigorously opposed the cuts in provision too.  But when D day came – Ron who was a WYFRA member came casually up to the FBU guys, said “ I have been whipped” and didn’t even have the decency  to abstain. You might be shocked to hear Dad that the conservatives congratulated COVEN on the thoroughness and quality of their opposition document, but Labour never even said Thank You or Well Done and then the labour controlled authority voted through the closure of 10 stations plus 100 job losses of front line fire fighters, and you as well as me know that it is these blokes who actually do the work saving lives and property and it’s a hard and dirty job.  

Actually Dad I did give Ron Grahame the full and frank benefit of my opinion in the foyer of the training school afterwards for which of course I am now paying the price. It’s a topic for another blog but these local politicians and their cronies really sink to some amazingly dirty depths to keep their overrated egos afloat!  

So that’s the first reason – the second is planning.   My local pub in LS9  – the Spring Close Tavern was subject to a planning application to be knocked down and turned into 13 flats. This would have resulted in a payment by the developer of £22,000  to Leeds City Council of Section 106 money, it’s sort of reparation for lost facilities.  Some would call it a financial incentive, I prefer the B word myself but as I am currently subject to an allegation of defamation (I will tell you more about that in the next entry).  So 13 flats divided by £22k is £1692 per unit.  Just across the road from my local – which fortunately is still standing and serving gin and tonics btw, a property developer has bought a local church and is to be allowed to knock the majority of it down, build 176 flats and can you guess how much  106 money they are to pay............................... NOTHING. This planning application was recently extended by the labour controlled plans panel east and they didn’t even query why no money was requested. By my reckoning labour have lost  about £300k for my area.

I go to a fair few plans panels and further up York Road – near Colton Village (v posh) a housing development was rejected because the 106 money offered was insufficient.  They wanted £1.7 MILLION for a development of only 86 houses.  The developer offered much less and the application was refused. Plans panel east again, labour controlled has the same councillors for both areas – and they treat us so differently – it’s a crime.  If you do read this blog take a look a bit further back at how the council  sold a beautiful grade 2 listed building to a property developer called Jason Butler for  £17,000 when it was worth at least £300,000.

And finally the third reason I am voting liberal tomorrow. And this is the main reason.................. several years ago the liberal /conservative council decided that they needed a solution to getting rid of the city’s waste instead of landfill. It’s not environmentally friendly and cost are going up all the time.  By 2010 it was becoming very clear to us that the solution that was going to be chosen as an alternative was incineration.  Burning waste is wrong on so many levels and I wont bother you with the technical details but ALL of the COMMUNITY was adamantly against it. Ron Grahame was elected and ousted the liberals on an anti incineration ticket. All of the labour councillors on the inner east were against it. Cllr Graham Hyde even HELPED US SET UP No2 INCINERATOR. And in 2011 Asghar Khan assured us all loudly in both in public and private meetings that he was avidly against incineration as a method of waste disposal. When in 2011 labour took control of the council one of their first tasks was to continue backing incineration, and they have even had the audacity to propose building the monstrosity less than 200 metres from housing and a local park. The liberal councillor RALPH PRYKE proposed a vote to allow a referendum so the citizens of Leeds could have a say in the proposed method of waste disposal – labour voted against this and our two labour councillors did  not have the courage to vote against their party and with their constituents. They committed the ultimate act of betrayal and left the council chamber.  I like you dad, prefer my politicians with spines.

Ralph Pryke has a spine – he regularly gets insulted and berated in meetings by the labour lot. He even tried to get a scrutiny panel to review the community consultation  saying it was inadequate. I attended that and spoke on my communities behalf. What did I get for my trouble? Well Cllr Mick Lyons (labour as you may have guessed by now) is threatening me via a posh London solicitor with legal proceedings for defamation......... see reference above to the depths they will sink to.  Labour will ruin my already damaged and poverty ridden community but a local councillor will pursue a local community campaigner via the courts because she basically spoke passionately in her communities defence at a meeting. No members of the public were there, or press – just lots of labour councillors feigning outrage and shock. Actually dad I called myself a community political prostitute in the same sentence and they didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

You will be probably disappointed to read that although being 50 I am still inside that hot headed, bad tempered 23 yr old I was when you died. And (pardon my language) Cllr Lyons can do what the fuck he likes, because even the poorest most deprived member of my community has more idea of what reality is than he does.   And if the sad bloke gets his kicks from intimidating middle aged ladies, well bring it on.

Actually dad and I know that you won’t understand a word of this having died when pocket calculators were still the size of house bricks........... but I have a secret. There is one thing politicians are terrified of. It’s called social media......... websites, blogs, twitter, and face book to be precise. It gives power and influence to the masses and it scares them witless. Labour might win Burmantofts and Richmond Hill tomorrow, Cllr Lyons may sue my arse off for every penny I haven’t got, but the price they will pay for their sad and silly ways will be much higher. Seems there is nothing a politician values higher than their reputation. But without votes from people like me - they are nothing.

Anyway  - hope you are OK ( wherever you are) ,  and sorry for not getting in touch sooner. Love to Mum and Paul

Your loving daughter

Sarah