The Garforth Gazette

8.44pm- The hustings have officially ended! Thank you for reading, folks! Now The Garforth Gazette is going to buy herself a bag of chips as a reward 🙂

Good tidings to everyone.

8.34pm- The hustings are ending.

8.24pm- Someone is asking about pot holes.

Dobson- He believes that more money should be spent on tackling the issue of pot holes. He agrees that you can’t take millions out of infrastructure without problems. He says every political party is guilty of it.

Nargle- With austerity, what was a 5 year plan to restore roads became an 8 year plan. He needs to spend money because it would save trouble and time and damage to cars and people.

Citizens are very vocal today.

8.16pm- A citizen is asking about complying with political parties, and rebelling against what the party wants to solve local issues.

Nagle- If elected he would like to represent this area but he is a city councillor for the whole city. He says that he will be supporting his party now.

Will you reverse the decision to cut youth services, someone asks.

Nagle- The brutal answer is that the other things that could be cut have been cut. The Council is in a deep hole financially. He hopes that cut can be reversed.

Bentley- If I was elected, I would consider the needs of the ward members to be more important. He would hope that he could find the right people to answer the questions.

Dobson- He says that he was a member of the Labour Party, but he didn’t approve of the decisions being made. He doesn’t believe in outsourcing for primary and social care, which he saw the Labour Party do.

8.07pm- A citizen asked about working with the Mayor of West Yorkshire.

Nagle- He says that he believes it’s good  that regions have mayors, and that this helped with the £2 bus fare. He hopes that it can be a success in the future.

The citizen clarifies.

Bentley- The Mayor of West Yorkshire includes all kinds of areas, including all the councillors, so not everyone can work with the Mayor all the time.

Dobson- He says that he is not a fan of the mayoral model. He personally doesn’t think that it is working. He doesn’t think that all of the conflicting interests in West Yorkshire with all of the cities works. He compares West Yorkshire to Manchester (again). He compliments Andy Burham (again).

Second note from The Garforth Gazette- He talked about a lot of this stuff in Great Preston, so feel free to read yesterday’s article!

7.44pm- A citizen is commenting on cars with housing, and how Garforth is blocked completely because of this. She says that Garforth only has 4 main roads.

Bentley- He lives on Ninelands Lane, so he knows about the change in traffic. He hasn’t noticed a problem with extra cars.

The citizen says that he is wrong.

Bentley- He thinks it’s fair to say that the problem is school traffic.

There is quite a conversation happening here.

Dobson- He acknowledges that there is a problem with gridlocking. He says that other people from other locations are causing this problem due to going to public services that are not local to them. He says that there is more traffic from elsewhere. He says that it’s about the best management of traffic movement.

He is really emphasising local knowledge here.

Nagle- There is no simple answer and it’s about managing the problem. He says that the schools should be encouraged to develop more walking buses. He says that there should be a better public transport system. He agrees with the local knowledge approach spoken about by Mark Dobson.

A citizen said that Barley Hill Park car park fines have been a disaster. He does not approve at all about the electric charging scheme.

Nagle- He says this the council is going to balance the books. (The Garforth Gazette recalls this from yesterday) He talks about how there is austerity from the Tories and that car parking charges provide revenue for the city…

(Now… is he joking or not?)

A citizen questions whether the charge will really help the council. They say that they want to see how much money it really is.

Dobson- He says that the Council said it makes £70k a year. He says that it has created a problem for him, though! He says that he believes in a mixed model of long and short term parking. He says that Councils should see what people would live without- and they aren’t right now. He wants local people to make decisions about local areas.

7.34pm- I asked what the candidates plan to do about infrastructure nearby.

Nargle- The best we possibly can. He wants to negotiate with the housebuilders and be careful about holding them to account. 1. Negotiation, 2. Great care about how to do this, he says. He says that people need to make a plan about what infrastructure is needed beforehand.

Bentley- He says that part of the development money can go to helping with local infrastructure.

Dobson- He says negotiation and local knowledge is needed. He talks about flooding in Garforth, as an example. He says that he’s seen sewage on the streets before. He says that some development should be done with local issues (like this) in mind. He is using case studies to describe this, including houses near Skelton Lakes service station. He says that it can be done, but you have to keep an eye on the ball.

A citizen asks how the council can get away with getting away with less than 15% social housing.

Dobson responds that the Council likes to take the path of least resistance.

7.19pm- Someone is asking about young people- and saying that no one can afford housing here now. He is asking about how many social houses would be built nearby.

Nagle- He says that housing is the base is the pyramid and that you need other things too, like education. He says that if young people can’t get a place to live, that is ridiculous. He says that he wants to see councils take responsibility for building more council houses too. He thinks that the new housing project should be 15% social housing. He thinks that it should be higher than 15%. He says that we need an approach that includes nearby infrastructure. He says that there has to be more building on brownfield sites as well- which requires capital from central government.

The person is asking for the government to prioritise housing.

Nagle- These projects would fund themselves- people would pay rent, work and contribute to the community upon the building on brownfield sites.

Dobson- He thinks that housing shortage in Leeds is a myth. He is talking about developers wanting to build on the greenbelt because it is easy to develop.

Quick note from The Garforth Gazette- A lot of this is very similar to the commentary surrounding housing at the Great Preston hustings yesterday. To hear more about this, feel free to read yesterday’s article.

He also believes that a community needs infrastructure. He says that people should have an opportunity for a good social house. He says that he doesn’t believe in volume house-building though. He says that the Council want larger capital receipts from large volume properties.

Someone is saying that this rhetoric doesn’t help young people to live in Garforth.

Dobson- Younger people have a tendency to find cheaper housing elsewhere, he says. He believes that young people won’t be able to settle here, most likely, but instead more in places like Castleford or Kippax.

He is very direct about his point about developers.

7.13pm- Someone is asking about the pavements on Main Street and what the candidates can do to help pavement quality improve.

Dobson- He says that it’s very difficult to differentiate between public and private land. He says that most Main Street pavement is under private ownership- therefore even if there is money given to the council, the traders (who own the pavement) wouldn’t necessarily take to it. The councillors could fix the problem if it becomes a threat to people’s safety.

Nagle- He says that the issue of public safety is very important. However, people must find ways to address the issue despite challenges- and that people should communicate with traders.

7.02pm- Three candidates are here- three are notably missing. We are being told about the fire exits. It’s the same three as last time- so if you want to see them you could look at the picture from yesterday… not much has changed! (Unless you would like The Garforth Gazette to photoshop them into the Welfare Hall).

We have a referee this time 🙂

6.47pm- I’m en route to the Garforth hustings for the candidates in the Garforth and Swillington ward. Hopefully all candidates will be here this time and we’ll see a good turnout! Yesterday had an interesting variance in opinion on matters to do with transport, adult social care and children’s care, as well as housing and financial decisions of Leeds City Council. I wonder if we’ll see much new today!

A reminder… the day to vote is May 7th. Make sure that you’re registered to vote 🙂 Updates will be as the event continues.