Leeds Trolleybus Public
Enquiry
Day 61
Friday
9th October 2014
Links to the audio recordings for the day are included
here and commentary follows below.
In the first morning session of Day 6 of the Leeds
Trolleybus Public Enquiry, Friday 9th Oct 2014, Mr Stuart Natkus on behalf of
Morley House Trust (LGHS) and other local Statutory Objectors, gives their
cases against the NGT proposals.
In the late morning session of
Day 6 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, Friday 9th Oct 2014, Mr Stuart
Natkus on behalf of Morley House Trust (LGHS) and other local Statutory
Objectors, completes their cases against the NGT proposals and Neil Cameron QC
for the Applicant begins his cross examination.
In the afternoon session of Day 6 of the Leeds Trolleybus
Public Enquiry, Friday 9th Oct 2014, Mr Stuart Natkus is cross examined by Neil
Cameron QC for the Applicant NGT as well as by the Inspector.
As week 15 ground to a close, and
the Enquiry has now extended to over twice the length originally anticipated
(by NGT I should hasten to add), we saw Mr Stuart Natkus for the statutory
objectors along Headingley Lane and on Headingley Hill present his case against
the trolleybus scheme, or at least against a lot of details which are part of
it.
I have a little joke I make about
Mr Natkus, for which I hope he will forgive me. Doubtless my readers will know the saying ‘The enemy of my enemy
is my friend’. And Mr Natkus, or at
least the clients whom he is representing, are enemies of NGT. So in this he is our friend. However life is never simple. While, of necessity, their case is made on
as many technical heritage grounds as can be found, and they are essentially
restricted to objections around the properties which they own, their prime
objective must be to minimise the impact on those properties.
And several of those properties
have highly contentious developments pending in one way or another. If the trolleybus doesn’t go ahead then
there is still the application to build on the fields which are currently
grazed by horses.
And clearly the old Leeds Girls’
High School site which is the principle property that is being defended has
great development potential and has failed to realise this because of the
planning blight which has hung over it for so long. Desirable residences could be established in several of the old
buildings, but the question of whether a slice of land would be taken from the
northern edge of it along Headingley Lane has been the problem.
However, for a good many of the
objectors, what was already a complicated local heritage and development issue
is made a great deal more so because of the proposed building development on
the Victoria Road playing fields site which is attached to this. And Mr Natkus is involved with this highly
controversial issue which has raised questions in the minds of local residents
about the planning decision to build on a green field in such a heavily built
up area.
And so, while the enemy of my
enemy is my friend, in the particular context of the Trolleybus Enquiry, at the
same time he is our enemy, as he is working for the interests who would cause
this asset of green space to be lost forever as well as quite possibly the
field on Headingley Hill.
The subjects of his evidence were
fairly predictable if you have heard his cross examinations of some of the
witnesses, focussing on the question of whether it would not be better and more
practicable to leave out the proposed segregated cycle track on Headingley
Lane, and leave any road widening to the northern, uphill side of the
road. He also concentrated on arguing
that if widening were to take place on the southern side (his clients side)
that the old Design Freeze 2 plans should be implemented, only taking a very
narrow slice on this section, rather than the 3 to 5 meters of the more recent
Design Freeze 7. Interestingly, this is
the same preference for DF2 as Mr Barraclough had for the grounds around
Headingley Castle a few days, earlier, and when you take into account that both
argue for the trolleybus track to go in the defile now occupied by St Columba’s
church car park, and that that should be relocated to the adjacent part of the
field now currently grazed by horses, (proposed for the ‘pocket park’) it seems
not impossible that they might have co-ordinated their cases. Which they are entitled to do. Clearly First West Yorkshire and the Leeds
College of Art have done the same thing in that they are employing the same
counsel, and it cannot have been out of their ken that this would make a
stronger and more comprehensive case.
And so quite possibly with the
owners of these other pieces of land such as the Roman Catholic Diocese,
Hinsley Hall and Headingley Properties and Headingley Castle. They would almost be fools not to organise
some pincer attack.
One thing I do wonder about
though, is whether by offering the kinds of alternatives that they do, they are
trying to impress on the Inspectors the severe limitations of the proposed
trolleybus route, especially through this heritage rich zone on Headingley
Hill.
I’m thinking here of the, in my
own view at least, unworkable idea of widening Headingley Lane on the north
side. It would be one thing to build up
the south side where the hill falls away in order to create a new carriageway,
an ugly and destructive proposal, but one which would be possible in
engineering terms. However, to cut away
several meters of land on the north side for this purpose creates a serious
regrading problem from the very steep side roads such as Cumberland Road,
Grosvenor Road and the listed Ashwood Villas, amongst others.
There are listed buildings,
structures and walls on both sides of the road and it is so rich, despite the
run down nature of some parts, that I am frankly staggered at the audacity of
Metro in attempting to pull such a road widening off. Perhaps we should remember Councillor Richard Lewis’s remark at
the Headingley Public Meeting last summer that this is ‘far more of a Highways
scheme than one of public transport’.
They want road widenings is what
I read from this. Cllr Lewis is
disingenuous in the extreme in his zealous crusade to implement the NGT scheme,
claiming that the need for it is driven by the fact that there is too much
traffic on the A660, but he himself was instrumental in helping to seal the
deal for the (ghastly) new Victoria Gate development (for which we have lost
half of our heritage in Eastgate) which has an increase of some 375 car parking
spaces for shoppers who wish to bring their cars into the city centre.
Mr Martin Farringdon, Chief
Development Officer for Leeds City Council and the first witness at the Enquiry
proudly stated at the beginning of his testimony that one of his recent
achievements was his involvement with that very Victoria Gate development. These two gentlemen work closely in Council,
as befits their positions, but they apparently see no contradiction in on the
one hand encouraging hundreds more cars into the city centre while at the same
time complaining that there are too many cars coming into the city centre and
arguing that that is sufficient reason to demand we are subjected to the
trolleybus scheme.
Which, would widen roads, that
when the trolleybus had died a doubtless swift and tragic death, could be
filled up by the cars of those they have encouraged to park in city centre car
parks.
So by defending their own patches
on strong technical heritage grounds, the statutory objectors around Headingley
Hill represented by Mr Natkus and Mr Barraclough are obliging the Applicant and
the Inspectors to look at the fact that if you want to widen roads, the
alternatives to those you have designs on are equally fraught in various different
ways. One hopes that they are getting
the message that our narrow Victorian streets are not suitable for such a
project and would be irrevocably damaged.
Before I wind up I will just mention something
that appears to be good news, and which I will elaborate upon later, but it
seems that a witness for Leeds College of Art may be coming to speak. There has been some uncertainty about this
and Mr Jones has suggested that their position was not clear, but we are keeping
out fingers crossed that this does not fall through. In the words of the
Inspector ‘It doesn’t look like they are going to come to an agreement’ so
their witness has been tentatively scheduled for the Wednesday 29th
and Thursday 30th of October, which if that remains the case must be
seen as good news for the Objectors.
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