Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry
Day 35
Today was, in my view, quite a
significant one in the development of the Enquiry. I was only able to attend for a part of the day so I had to catch
up with the proceedings before being able to make the commentary which follows
the links. If you only have an hour to
devote to listening I would suggest getting up to speed with the developments
around the submission of the new 370 page Heritage document which takes the
first 40 minutes or so of the first audio recording at the beginning of the
day, and then to move on to the devastating cross examination of Mr Walker in
the final session of the day, starting at about 22:30 on the late afternoon
session recording.
Commentary follows below audio
links.
The first morning session of Day
35 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, July 17 2014 begins with about an
hour of discussion around the letters between First West Yorkshire and the
Applicant NGT over the submission of late Heritage technical evidence. This is
then followed by Mrs Helen Pickering for the Drummonds and Churchwoods
Residents Association who cross examines Mr Thomas Walker on the visual and
landscape impacts on Far Headingley if the NGT scheme were to go ahead.
In the late morning session of
Day 35 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, July 17 2014, Mr Stuart Natkus
for Morley House Trust and others cross examines Mr Thomas Walker on the
landscape and visual impacts on Headingley Lane which would be created by the
NGT trolleybus scheme should it be approved and implemented.
In the early afternoon session of
Day 35 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, July 17 2014, Ms Claire Randall
cross examines Mr Thomas Walker on some aspects of treess relevant to the
Enquiry and then concludes her examination by analysing the unnecessary and
prejudicial changes which were made to the photomontages of key locations as
they are expected to look should the NGT proposals be implemented.
In the late afternoon session of
Day 35 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, July 17 2014, Mrs Sue Sleeman
delivers questions to Mr Thomas Walker on behalf of Ms Claire Randall on the
visual and landscape impact of the proposed NGT scheme on Headingley Lane
should it be accepted and be implemented. She is then followed by the Inspector
Mr Martin Whitehead who asks a series of penetrating questions and lastly Neil
Cameron QC who re-examines Mr Walker who has now completed his evidence as a
witness at the Public Enquiry.
*
There was so much content in
today’s sitting that it would be impossible to get in all the detail, but in
significant business the day began with a forty minute discussion mostly
between the Inspector, Gregory Jones QC (for First) and Neil Cameron QC (for
NGT) on the whys and wherefores of the submission of the revised Heritage
document which has been submitted recently.
The importance of this is that there have been a number of objections to
its inclusion in the evidence, and there has been correspondence about its appropriateness
from both sides.
NGT are playing a dangerous game
here since if the new document is not allowed their credibility will be seen to
be seriously reduced. While Mr Cameron
is maintaining that his client merely wanted to make sure that the Inspector
had all the evidence before him so that he had the choice to include it or not,
Mr Jones is strongly asserting that this is an admission that the original
evidence was incomplete and/ or inaccurate.
Certainly I have heard that, for example, the new document gives a set
back of walls in front of Rose Court at only 2 meters, whereas when I gave my
cross examination of Mr Ward, I was told it was 5 meters. I certainly don’t have the time to trawl
through all 370 pages in order to winkle out more details like this and I’m
sure that others feel the same way. The
Inspector wants to have responses to the new letter from NGT arguing our
reasons in by Monday from those who have already objected to it so I shall have
to compose that over the weekend. All
the extra work is most unwanted and as a private objector I believe I am not
entitled to seek costs for any expense incurred in examining this document, so
there is nothing in it for me. Frankly
in my view it is an affront to the Enquiry.
One can sense that this is an extra burden and decision which the
Inspector would rather not have added to his plate, in an enquiry which has
already expanded well beyond what was first anticipated.
The two cross examinations which
took up the remainder of the morning were good solid attacks on the proposals,
and something which was to be highlighted later on was the way that the
Applicant had repeatedly ‘taken a view that’ a particular decision was best
often without a great deal of basis in evidence, consultation, or the
statements of guidance which are used in such cases. One significant point that Mrs Pickering drew attention to was
the Promoter’s reliance on ‘mitigation’ strategies, such as the replacement
tree planting, which she showed was only the same as is required for any
redevelopment in Leeds according to published guidelines.
Frankly, this word ‘mitigation’
is one I have come to cordially despise over the last couple of months. The Promoters seem to have ‘taken the view’
that you can do pretty much anything you like so long as you ‘mitigate’
afterwards. This leaves the absurd
situation where, as on Headingley Lane, a significantly ‘positive’ building
could be partly demolished, making a significant adverse impact, but which
would end up being a positive result simply on the basis that the remaining part
of it would be reconstructed after the
demolition was completed.
Again and again there appear to
have been ‘views taken’ and subjective judgements made without recourse to
guidance documents or consultation. One
is reminded of Mr Neil Chadwick who reported that his team had made qualitative
judgements based on nothing more than their own views or perhaps we should say
~ opinions.
I myself had the opportunity to
put some questions to Mr Walker in the early afternoon, focussing in the time I
had available on the value of the old trees and the quality of the
photomontages. I asked him if he was
aware of the concept of the spirituality of trees as embodied in social
anthropology which had been acknowledged by Mr Ward, and I was most encouraged
when, having put to Mr Walker that while the spiritual value and collective
grief that would be felt at the loss of the trees might be hard to quantify,
some qualitative assessment would have been appreciated, the Inspector
interrupted to ask if any such qualitative assessment had been done and of
course we were told that it hadn’t been considered necessary. I think the Inspector might have been
slightly trailing his later questions with that.
The set of questions on the maps and photomontages I
had been waiting to put for nearly two months now since Mr Haskins had passed
on them had to be squeezed into half an hour and since it was known that I
wished to finish close to a quarter past three (I had a concert at York Minster
to get to by 7pm) I had a definite feeling that Mr Walker was delaying
a’purpose as Sam Gamgee might say.
It was gradually squeezed out of
him that maps should be properly presented at consultations and not laid out in
the confusing way that I had brought to the attention of the Enquiry with Mr
Haskins who had admitted the example I cited and then I was able to get onto my
main piece which was to demonstrate bias in the presentation of the
photomontages.
My evidence was clear from the
guidance documents that these montages should be meticulously produced and that
the images should be presented such as to make comparisons clear.
Going through a number of these
images I was able to demonstrate that nearly all of the ‘before’ pictures had
bare winter trees, overcast skies and almost no people in the them, whereas a
preponderance of the ‘after’ pictures showed trees in full leaf, blue skies
overhead and streets thronging with people, giving irrelevant negative or positive associations to one or the other in
the background. Mr Walker prevaricated
by continually returning to mention of the overhead lines (OLE) and I was
forced to ask him to answer the questions and not refer to matters of which I
had made no mention. I think the killer
blow was the absurdly blue sky over the Three Horseshoes pub in an ‘after’
picture which was clearly the same base photo which had had a mostly white
cloudy sky.
The Inspector himself asked
whether there were any comparisons that were the other way round, which of
course there aren’t, and Mr Walker had nothing to say on this other than that
he didn’t think it was deliberate and that they were only trying to show how
things might be after implementation.
I confess to taking some
satisfaction in pressing my questions as to why he and his team had departed
from the guidance documents, and indeed from the scientific method itself, in
changing more than those details which were required to be changed, so that
other factors irrelevant to the NGT scheme were allowed to intrude with
subliminal images of positive or negative associations. As I put it to him ‘Are we expected to
believe that after NGT there will always be blue skies? Clearly not.’ So why were the skies changed?
I
was reminded of Mr Jones
examining Mr Hanson on why he had departed from the WebTAG guidance and
the
attempts to deny that it mattered. If there is one thing the Inspector
doesn't like, it is submissions which contravene rules and guidance.
And yet, the best Mr Walker had to offer
was that some graphic designer had got carried away with their enthusiasm and
overstepped the guidelines. I would put
it to anyone who believes this that the team is either incompetent for allowing
such biased imagery to slip through against standard guidelines, not just in
one image, but as a consistent pattern in the photomontages (see document B-7
for most of these), or else Mr Walker is misleading the enquiry in putting forward assumptions that are no more than speculations he cannot substantiate.
It is not for me to make the judgement on this as to motivation
and intent, but merely as a professionally qualified Art Therapist to draw
attention to the inconsistency and unscientific methodology present here in the
visual imagery and point out the psychological effects that these subliminal
associations would have on viewers.
As
I said ~ ‘Do I have to quote Ivan Pavlov 1904?’
Everyone knows what is probably the most famous experiment in the
history of psychology where a bell which had been associated with the presence
of food produced a salivating response in the dog when it was rung in the absence of
food. Does the team at Gillespie’s
think we are to be treated like dogs in a conditioning experiment to have our
feelings triggered by positive and negative associations such as blue or cloudy
skies?
I am told by observers that they
thought that the Inspector showed quite a degree of interest in this part of
the examination, which was congruent with my own experience ~ he had appeared
to be smiling and had clearly grasped the central point of this examination.
For my last question I took the
opportunity to pick up a remark which Mr Walker had made which I had found rather
strange, so I exercised my right to examine him on what he had said.
When Mr Tony Ray, the retired
town planner, had been examining him on Wood Lane, surely one of the finest
views in all Headingley and visible right from the main road, he had made the
curious remark that NGT would treat this area with sensitivity, because this
was where the Ripper murder had taken place.
He claims have been a student in
Leeds in the 1980s so perhaps the Jacqueline Hill murder of November 1980 was
before his time, but if he had any knowledge of the matter, as any local person
will tell you, the tragedy took place in Alma Road at the other end of the
Arndale Centre, not Wood Lane. He didn’t know this on
examination and had thought that Wood Lane was the place. When I asked him if having the NGT crossing
of Alma Road and the turnaround layby proposed for trolleybuses to pass over the
spots where the unfortunate victim had been murdered and then dragged to in the
bushes, now a car park, was treating the memory with respect, he tried to slip
out of it claiming this was not what he had meant. Apparently he is concerned with the safety of the Wood Lane stop
and how it should be visible from the street because he thought this is where
the murder had taken place. I should
have thought that visibility and good lighting for the safety of passengers on
dark nights would have been de rigeur for any of the much vaunted NGT bus
shelters, but apparently the proposed Wood Lane stop needs special attention,
as if he were suggesting that the Ripper were still on the prowl.
He said that an objector had
mentioned the Ripper and this was why he had referred to it himself. I do not recall any previous questions
mentioning this, and certainly Mr Ray had not mentioned it in the 16 minutes before
it came up so it remains a curious comment.
He failed to respond to my
suggestion that a cross road and roundabout on one of the most infamous murder
spots in Leeds would not only be insensitive to the memory but also would be an
unpleasant thing for passengers to know about as they passed along the route on
their daily commute. One would have the
memory continually brought into ones mind on a daily basis and it would not be
allowed to rest. His final response
that he thought I was making too much of this in order to build up my case
reminded me of his reply when I asked about the collective grief of the
community if our old trees were to be taken from us. Basically he has no interest in the inner lives of the population
of our community or our feelings. He said
himself earlier ‘I am not a psychologist’.
But he extends this to imply that the world of feelings which we all
inhabit is of no value.
It is always hard to descry the
Inspector’s views on matters, he is necessarily and properly inscrutable most
of the time. So I take some heart in
the fact that he thanked me for making it clear to the Enquiry about the actual
location of the events which had been alluded to, a remark which he had no need
to make.
I had to wind up and leave
immediately after this, so I didn’t catch what happened until a day or so
later. After the break I was most
grateful to Mrs Sue Sleeman for taking on a block of questions I had about the
proposed changes on Headingley Lane but which I didn’t have time to include in
the hour that I had and which she delivered most capably when I had gone.
Following this was one of the
biggest surprises of the whole Enquiry so far to date, at least to me. The Inspector does often ask questions, but
usually only one or two at a time, interrupting when he feels a witness is not
answering the question.
This time he had saved the best
for last. A series of withering blasts
ensued putting under the spotlight the question as to what kind of
consultations Mr Walker’s people had had with local residents
on these environmental plans that were being put forward. The community who use St Columba’s Church
were especially mentioned since such a large block of complaints had come from
this demographic, and the Inspector asked what sort of engagement had occurred
with this group. None ~ was the answer,
either before the objections had been submitted or even afterwards in response
to them. In fact on virtually all of
the associated questions which Mr Whitehead put to the witness it appears that
the guidance on consultation for such major schemes as this was not followed. The only consultations which had been made
were with institutions such as the Leeds Civic Trust and the like.
This is troubling to me in more
ways than one. Not just that an
institution was preferred to the local population in its opinion, but the fact
that the Civic Trust has declined considerably in its credibility over recent
times since it has allied itself not to the heritage and conservation interests
of our beautiful Victorian and Edwardian inheritance, but has begun getting
close to property developers and supports the implementation of NGT. I had a long face to face conversation with
Dr Kevin Grady of the Trust last year about this and found his view on it
inexplicable.
Anyway I was very pleased to hear
that the Inspector would not be whitewashed.
I wish I could have been there to see the non verbal aspects of this
exchange, but even just with the voices I found it cringeworthy. Despite having come to know Mr Walker over
several days of evidence and seen that he is a man who has the kind of
arrogance which looks down on others who do not hold the same views as he does,
I couldn’t help feeling some degree of empathy and embarrassment for him as he
was hauled over the coals. But I guess
he probably doesn’t have that empathic ability himself, so I probably shouldn’t
mind how he is treated by the Inspector, since he is one of these bullies who
wishes to trample all over our local sensibilities and rip the heart out of the
best of our community.
I was given positive feedback
from those who felt I had made my points about the photomontages effectively,
but it wasn’t until I heard the Inspector’s own questions that I realised I had
only sounded an introductory blast on the trumpet compared to what he had been
building up to with respect to the more than failure to consult, but the
positive aversion to it.
A friend asked me afterwards ‘Can
we get optimistic now?’ Well I don’t
want to go sowing false hope and so I won’t say for sure. But perhaps to misquote Churchill, ‘This may
not be the end, or even the beginning of the end, but perhaps it is the end of
the beginning’.
I am so proud and happy to be
able to bring the witnessing of the truth of what is happening at the Enquiry
to the public domain with the recordings (for which I again must repeatedly
thank all those wonderful and reliable people who are keeping them cued up when
I am absent) in the face of a city council and transport authority who have
been derelict of their duty to do so themselves, and the BBC who have kept such
a distance from the Enquiry most of the time and failed to report anything of
substance. The institutional and
bureaucratic high handedness which ignores the people is being exposed and it
is now so obvious that even the government appointed Inspector appears to be
joining in and denouncing it.
