Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry Day
20
June 06 2014
Today was the final day for
examining the Heritage issues with Mr Philip Ward, team leader of the
Conservation department in Leeds City Council.
The cross examinations from Mr
Stuart Natkus, Mr Bill McKinnon and Ms Dawn Carey Jones went over aspects of
the heritage environment from the Clarendon Road junction of Woodhouse Lane by
the University to Buckingham Road by Rose Court School at Ford House.
The examinations can be heard at
the following links and my commentary follows below these as usual.
On day 20 of the Leeds trolleybus
enquiry, June 06 2014, Mr Philip Ward, head of conservation at Leeds City
Council is cross examined by Stuart Natkus for Morley House Trust (Leeds Girls
High School) on heritage issues around the moving of the long wall on
Headingley Lane and related assessment issues.
On day 20 of the Leeds trolleybus
enquiry, June 06 2014, Mr Bill McKinnon picks up the cross examination of Mr
Philip Ward on Heritage matters around Woodhouse Moor and is followed by Ms
Dawn Carey Jones on Hyde Park corner.
http://www.mixcloud.com/CosmicClaire/leeds-trolleybus-enquiry-day-20-june-06-2014-afternoon-session/
In the final session of day 20 of
the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, June 06 2014, Ms Dawn Carey Jones completes her
examination of Mr Philip Ward on Heritage matters around Hyde Park Corner, and
is followed by Mr Walton for the Applicant who re-examines on some points he
picks up from the week.
Mr Natkus had clearly done a huge
amount of preparation for this, surrounded as he was by huge box files and
piles of documents. It would appear to
have been worth his while as he picked apart what seemed to be numerous
inconsistencies in assessments. He
asked how moving the long wall up Headingley Lane could be assessed as
‘moderately adverse’ but the rebuilding made it only ‘slight’ when
rebuilt. He argued that the obvious
change in appearance was a significant factor in this while Mr Ward was virtually
suggesting that people who knew the area might not notice the difference.
He then drew attention to
whether, if the conservation planning application was granted, but NGT did not
go ahead, it could be used by a future developer to make changes. Technically it appeared that would be the
case.
He was keen to point out there
were large discrepancies in
measurements given in the application, buildings were missing from the
Environmental Assessment such as 35 Headingley Lane and a whole series of
‘moderate’ assessments became ‘minor’ after what seemed to me, frankly, to be
sophistry.
The Coach House, the oldest
building on the road as I understand it, dating from perhaps 1835, was regarded
as having ‘low value’ even though it was a ‘positive building’ and examples
were given where ‘significant adverse’ effects were somehow juggled to become
‘slight’.
Probably the most telling
exchange of the day was when Mr Natkus said to Mr Ward that the documents
‘don’t appear to add up’, and Mr Ward was obliged to reply ‘They don’t appear
to’.
This is serious stuff. It would appear to have been established
that Mr Ward was at best bending the evidence, and there is the suggestion that
it was falsified, or at least presented erroneously and misleadingly. I was reminded of Mr Henkel when Mr Jones
turned around the allegations by Metro that First had been unco-operative and
demonstrated that it was Metro themselves who had been unco-operative.
The cross examinations by Bill
McKinnon and Dawn Carey Jones focussed in their turns upon the historic
significance of Woodhouse Moor, Leeds’ first public park, and Hyde Park Corner,
about which I learned much, such as that there had been a building made of the
unique Leeds made material ‘Marmo’, a terracotta like material which looks like
marble, at Hyde Park Corner where the large billboard is now.
Mr Ward made various unsupported
statements to the effect that the demolition of buildings such as this, or the
Oriental Baths which Mr McKinnon drew attention to, that had happened in the
nineteen sixties wouldn’t happen today, and yet here we are, with the proposed
demolition of Victorian detached villas (no2 Victoria Road came into the
discussion again), the loss of park space and the serious impact of partial
demolition of a long heritage site right next door.
Again and again Mr Ward appeared
to be underplaying the impact of all these demolitions that NGT want to carry
out.
My own view is that Leeds City
Council planners are out of control.
The demolition of Eastgate is the most current example, to be replaced
by a larger replica of the Trinity development so far as I have been able to
make out. I recall that Mr Farrington
who was examined in the first week was proud to put his name to the Victoria
Gate scheme which will be the name of the John Lewis sponsored complex. Following the recent demolition of Royal
Park School, which had been purposely allowed to deteriorate so as to make it
not viable, and before that the closure of the Holt Park Centre I have to ask
if they are planning to delete and overwrite any other valued and appreciated
assets to the communities of Leeds. Not
even the fine façade of Portland Stone and red brick is being kept on Eastgate,
which the planners could easily have stipulated be kept by the new design. So now the radical modernistic design with
its detail which bears no contextual relation to the townscape around will
dominate and clash with its surroundings.
But I digress.
Unlike Eastgate, the destruction
of the conservation areas along the A660 is by no means yet set in motion and a
massive case was made this week by the concerned parties to demonstrate the
historic significance of the route.
Many unsupported statements or diminutions of importance have been
exposed. Such simple things as Mr Ward’s
assertion in his proof that the tree stock was ‘aging’, which when examined, he
admitted he had no idea of the potential ages the threatened trees could reach,
and so demonstrated another example of how he seems to work on ‘belief’ rather
than hard evidence.
The fallacious nature of much of
what has been presented is something we have to trust the Inspectors will have
noticed. Unfortunately the day was
marred by their uncharacteristic impatience.
I am not clear why this was, but there was a suspicion that a train that
needed to be caught had something to do with the hurrying of the last two cross
examinations from objectors.
Nonetheless, with this witness as with several
of the others, there was a sense that if we hadn’t holed his evidence below the
waterline, it was at least on the waterline and that he was shipping some briny
to dilute the strength of his assertions that this route was not of such great
importance, or that the damage would not be such a loss to the community and heritage of
Leeds.
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