The Bradford Metropolitan district is a large sprawling area not often cited for its beauty. However, some 70% is green space and quite stunning in parts; it’s not all dark satanic mills up here.
This may not be the case if the rampant greed of property developers is allowed to hold sway over the next few years as house builders awake from years of recession.
There are some very desirable outlying areas such as Addingham, Bingley and Ilkley, albeit that if Scotland gets independence, you can bet Ilkley will be hard on their heels.
Inner Bradford – a mix of the good, the bad and the downright ugly – does contain some really nice places to live too. Developers recognise this, hence a plethora of planning applications reflecting the current resurgence in the UK’s mad property market.
Driven by an easing of credit and very short memories, prices are surging once again.
The politicians tell us they have the current situation under control; this is patently bollocks as a modest flicker upwards of interest rates would be seismic.
Regardless, the quest for attractive land to build on means green spaces everywhere are under immense threat.
There are 3 separate planning applications in this part of the city for almost 1,200 new homes. Now we have another proposal for 70 new houses on Idle Moor, to be built on land that was previously a mine. The locals have a case for feeling somewhat shafted.
The land is classed as Urban Green Space and, if opened up, you can bet that subsequent applications will follow as each field is picked off like a domino effect.
For example, the recent failure of plans to develop a nearby football pitch have temporarily land-locked a brown-field site – the old boiler works – approval of this plan is one more piece in the jigsaw to open this.
Developers spread like a cancer.
According to protesters there are over 300 houses for sale in Idle & Thackley so 1300 extra houses hardly seem a priority. This is not to count the number of empty homes lying waste, estimated at over 1m nationally.
Local schools are already oversubscribed as are health practices and the roads are jammed so much there is hardly enough space for the local hooligans to try to break their necks doing wheelies on their souped up BMX’s.
The developer – MGL Homes Ltd – is listed in Idle but has little real local interest other than turning a few quid. The majority shareholder lives in rural Pickering where they are a little more reluctant to concrete green fields.
A cursory look at the last filed accounts (30/11/12) shows little substance nor evidence of consistent trading. Put bluntly, this is a punt to grab a quick buck and the council should recognise this.
Of course, protesters largely live in houses built on green fields too so developers will argue their protests are inadmissible; this is missing the point completely. Development should be planned, sustainable and not limitless; clearly the current proposals are not.
Protesters might expect to take comfort in the fact that previous, smaller planning applications have been rejected by the Secretary of State and the reasons for these rejections have not changed. However, the Government’s obsession with new housing suggests not.
Bradford Council has convinced itself that it needs some 40,000 homes over the next decade and, as ever, they are taking a “cut”.
Sport & Leisure are demanding a bung of £121k for “the provision of recreation open space and playing fields due to the extra demands placed on the locality by this development.”
How will they provide open space when they are concreting it all? This is a blatant lie as the only recreation provided in the area is by private clubs because the council simply has no strategy at all.
I grew up playing on Idle Moor, roaming the fields of the Booth’s farm hoping not to get shot or gored by a bull, coming home black bright like a miner as we played commandos rolling in the coal dust on the moor, our own Utah Beach. Fortunately, Mr Booth never shot us.
We played King of the Castle on a little hill right where they want to build crappy boxes. It was here that I realised throwing the object of your teenage desires off the top was not a way to her heart. Limbs luckily intact she vanished very quickly mumbling “psycho…”
We fumbled in long grass on silly, endless summer days, coming home red-faced and none the wiser. We ran, we hid, we mucked about; sometimes we hit golf balls for as far as we could with no hope of ever finding them but secretly aiming at the cows.
We had free space and we loved it but in these money obsessed times of greed these simple things seem not to matter. To hell with the quality of people’s lives nor the right to some free space from the claustrophobia of modern life.
Finally, one look at the Planning Committee sitting for the next scheduled meeting at Wacky Hall down in Bradford would fill most objectors with dread for there is only one that represents a ward remotely near.
One more nail in the coffin for a part of the city where life is still good.
Saturdays With Molly – Life on the Road (Leeds Ring Road)
The dreaded double-weekend loomed again with the spectre of two away days in leafy North Leeds; Bardsey on Saturday followed by the cup against Adel with bodies hauled from comfy Shackleton high chairs far and wide to avoid the wrath of t’Management Committee.
I picked up our scorer H – still on suicide watch following more severe beatings for his beloved Bradford Bulls – and listened for an hour in the sun-soaked traffic to the woes of Bully Bully. Finally getting out of the car I felt anything but bully bully and searched for The Samaritans’ number.
Squad rotation measures were in place for the weekend. No sign of JB since his six-hitting feats nor Duck having bought a full set of new kit for the season.
Big Geoff was making his first appearance of the season having squeezed into Our Jordan’s old shirt and stuck long trousers on for the first time this year.
A hulk of a bloke, it is not unkind to say Big Geoff is not a cricketer. The fact is though we need 11 and there is no chance of the opposition getting lippy when we have the big man on the field with us.
His approach to fielding is conservative to say the least; if the ball can be reached without moving then fine, If not, someone else can chase it.
Bardsey must have heard Big Geoff was in the the team as they had erected a “No Dogs” sign at the gates meaning Ripple – our guard dog – had to be hauled back to Bradford where he could presumably shit to his heart’s content.
And so we were ten for another hour and more in the blazing sun with Molly fielding back-stop and Big Geoff driving like a man possessed.
It looked like we were on for an early day again but Bardsey sent Compo in at number five working on the technique of swipe, swipe and swipe some more and eventually ye shall middle one. Longer than hoped, we bowled them out for 187.
With Ripple gone Big Geoff had his tea as well as we strapped our pads on to reply. On reflection, ear muffs would have been better as it appeared that Bardsey wanted to talk us to defeat.
Compo seemed to have elected himself Captain and strutted about – moth bitten cap and trousers tucked in socks – using the club cricketer’s tactic of the parachute field i.e. place a fielder where the ball last landed.
As Tony Jones kept landing it in the adjoining gardens this proved tough to achieve for long.
Fortunately Big Geoff did not have to carry out his pre-match threat – “if I have to bat you lot will get it” – and the game of cricket was itself saved the possible sight of Big Geoff and Molly attempting a quick single.
Sunday morning came and after a night of near papal abstinence, it was up to bright sunshine and three hours with my Under 15s; suffice to say, perhaps I have made better choices.
A dash around the same ring-road and it was Adel, two divisions above us and with that smug air that can only be enhanced when the opposition turns up with a “selection” that could best be termed as Dad’s Army.
Saved from a day with the missus, Tubbs Taylor was making his first appearance of the season with tales of yesteryear to delight us all afternoon; sit back and listen we did to the Val Doonican of the team.
So too, Binny the Beast and our Chair of Selectors, Chiz, unable to wangle his way out of this one having made 97 phones calls and texts during the week, failing to persuade his wife or eighty year-old dad to play in his place.
Still, at least we had 11 missing out on t’Management Committee’s new incentive scheme for teams that concede a cup fixture and are rewarded by two years exemption from begging all and sundry to play on a Sunday.
Nearby, New Rover CC had elected to take the prize as divorces are expensive in this part of Leeds. Conceding their fixture ensured a few nuclear families remained intact for a few more seasons and divorce lawyers postponed the Bentleys.
Posting a respectable 156 – cheered on by the restored Ripple free to shit again – we had Adel on the rack at 50-5 and then a pivotal moment. A snick loud enough to be heard in Bradford and by all bar the umpire…not out?
Marsy turned to the umpire incandescent – like a proper bowler – and Big Geoff stirred; we all looked dumbfounded, ney cheated!
“It’s about time t’Management Committee supplied them with hearing aids” said one unnamed soul.
Inevitably, the recipient of the fortune granted went on to form a match winning partnership. Beaten but far from disgraced, we trudged off to seek the icy comforts of a long cold one and hoped that Ripple had found the umpire’s shoes.
Gardeners’ Corner
One of the delights of the growing season to me are runner beans. To watch their graceful progress, as they arch round and round to the top of the cane is an admittedly sad pleasure.
When they finally bloom they become a magnet for the local bee population it’s almost like Glastonbury for bees. In they swoop in their thousands for carnal pleasures unknown.
As ever, Godson Harry and I have put a “bet” on which of the plants will get to the top first. What the little man does not realise is that nightly I am feeding mine like Big Geoff and his like Posh Spice.
Worryingly, Posh Spice is in the lead…watch this space.
Not Before Breakfast?
There I was, sat nibbling my Monday morning toast, chilling in the morning sun. Suddenly, out of the sky dropped two sparrows, seemingly joined at the hip, as they hit the patio like Kamikaze pilots.
Not even stunned, up they bounced and then it dawned on me that they were mating; boy were they going at it as well. This was definitely a quickie.
It seems that sparrows mate by head-butting each other pretty much like they probably do down on the local estates. Not one I’ve tried before but you just never know.
And Finally
Having just finished a few weeks trying to coach cricket at a local primary school I was relaying my “experiences” to a fellow coach and was offered the following.
“Kids eh! Got told to f*ck off by a 10 year old at a festival last week, because he didn’t win the fair play award ironically!! The teacher just shrugged his shoulders, couldn’t decide which one to slap first!!”
Ruth Nunney says
All alone farm was my grandads farm he was called Roland booth Who was the local call man and milkman when my mother was growing up as a child that was her job before she went to school we played four hours around the moors to it would be so sad to see it all built on at one stage my grandad had number six all alone and he had the farm at the back we played for hours children don’t play like this any more because of the building and the property development The children today don’t have these privileges as all the land has been built on which Once was a Childs playgroundThe children in this day and age sit in the home playing stupid games that mean nothing there was not money spent in those days we was lucky if you got an ice cream we used to pick raspberries my grandma Glenys would make the jam she learnt us all to bake them skills will never be got again My grandad had a fresh water well which are used to give his horses a drink with yes it was all mine fields and there will certainly be in mineshafts I don’t think we should ruin the landscape of the old times if anything they should learn the children how to use the land my grandad had a fresh water well which he used to give his horses a drink with yes it was all mine fields and there will certainly be mineshafts I don’t think we should ruin the landscape of the old times if anything they should learn the children how to use the land and grow vegetables on it and help the community is what once was yours sincerely Ruth
Steve says
Thank you Ruth…going to add this to next week’s blog…catch Growing Up which tells the tale of when we burnt down the bonfire at the farm and Richard and I meeting years later, smiling about mad times as kids.
Graham Carling says
I lived in the Plumpton Estate from 1937 until my marriage in 1954 and a boy, had the joy of the playground that was Idle Moor. We made use of the hollows that were the tops of the mineshafts for many things: speeding around on bycicles, firing across to targets across the diameter, acting out warlike battles of the events in Europe etc.
It was something of a relief that the main shaft collapsed with a roar one night when there was no one about. We were very surprised when new housing went up in the area which we knew was so uncertain and one friend of my father’s bungalow had a major pond/spring under the floor.
I had just begun planning to write an article about that time and searching for ‘Idle Moor’ on Google gave this link. Thank you.
Steve says
Graham
Thanks for your note as I remember playing forever on that moor…and still they build.
Regards
Steve