What to do about a tip, Greens take Ilkley, locals launch new community action group and more

The Ilkley Journal roundup 🗞️

May 10, 2024

We’ll start with a thank you. On Thursday 9 May we hit what is a very small but meaningful milestone: 50 subscribers. At the time of writing we now have 55. It’s a number we aim to grow significantly as we become more established. These are, after all, very early days – we’re just two weeks old and the road ahead is, well, long – it will stretch way beyond the visible horizon.

In this edition we discuss the possible future of the tip, the shambles of the distribution of the mayoral booklet, report on the Green’s triumph in the local election and recap the annual town meeting.

Enjoy.

Ilkley Town Council to meet Bradford Council to discuss the future of Golden Butts

Ilkley Town Council has confirmed that it will be meeting Bradford Council next week to discuss the future of the Golden Butts Household Waste Recycling Centre, which closed its doors at the end of March.

Speaking at the annual town meeting, Karl Milner, Ilkley’s mayor, said that the council would investigate the feasibility and possibility of running the tip, but that it may be too much of a “push for us and our residents”.

“It is not clear whether we will be able to save [Golden Butts] or whether indeed the residents want to afford to save the tip,” he said. “These are two things that we must be sure about before we proceed.”

A petition to secure the long-term future of the tip secured over 3,000 signatures (3,642 in total) in January, while another in March, urging Ilkley Town Council to increase the precept to help fund Golden Butts, has so far got the backing of 3,404 people.

The decision behind the closure of Golden Butts, as well as other household waste recycling centres in areas of West Yorkshire, is part of cost-cutting measures being made by Bradford Council, which will be to the tune of some £40 million over the next three years.

“Since 2011, Bradford Council has had to find over £350m in cuts and savings due to national austerity measures, inflation and increased demand,” the council explained in January.

“More recently exceptional inflation and energy prices have put additional pressure on budgets for all local authorities. Along with a number of other local authorities, and in order to set a balanced budget, Bradford Council is in ongoing discussion with Government about exceptional financial support.”

West Yorkshire mayoral booklet rollout described as a “shambles”

A mayoral candidate for West Yorkshire has described the distribution of the West Yorkshire mayoral booklet as a “shocking waste of public money” and a “shambles”.

Stewart Golton, Liberal Democrat Group leader at Leeds City Council, claimed that many postal voters had received their voting packs before their copy of the booklet had been posted through their door.

“This is a very serious situation,” he said. “The justification for the production of the mayoral booklet was that local voters needed the information it provided to understand what the mayor does and to allow them to make an informed choice based on the candidate information included.

“However, many thousands of voters had a postal vote and many received their ballot papers before they had been sent their mayoral booklet.”

And with more people opting to vote by post – which is also known as absent voting – not having all the information to hand about all candidates taints the democratic process, the veteran councillor went on to say (Stewart has been a councillor for 26 years and counting):

“One of the reasons given for having the mayoral booklet is to offer all the candidates a level playing field in getting their policies across to the two million people in West Yorkshire before voters make their choice.

“The current mayor is the only one who hasn’t been shortchanged from this shambles. Voters who dutifully filled in their ballot paper early, without having had the booklet to help them make their choice have been short-changed – and the candidates who stumped up £4,000 to have their information arrive too late to influence those voters have also been short-changed.”

In the run-up to the West Yorkshire mayoral election, Bob Buxton, the candidate for the Yorkshire Party, tweeted that it was “very frustrating when (like all candidates) £4,000 had to be fundraised to appear in the booklet”.

Andrew Cooper, the Green Party candidate also tweeted: “Finally! I got hold of a West Yorkshire mayoral booklet. Not through the post! I found it lying on the pavement in Lockwood. Still, it helped inform my vote.”

According to returning officer guidance from The Electoral Commission, a mayoral booklet featuring candidates and their mini manifestos “must” be produced and delivered “to each person entitled to vote at the mayoral election”.

“You may require candidates to contribute to the costs of printing of the booklet,” the commission explains.

“The amount of the payment that you require is to be decided by you and you should be clear how that payment is to be made.”

In response to a query from The Ilkley Journal about the claim that the mayoral booklet for West Yorkshire wasn't delivered "on time", with postal voters, for example, receiving their ballot packs before their booklets, Donna Cox joint head of communications and marketing at Leeds City Council, said:

“We’re not aware of this being a significant issue but we have asked Royal Mail to report delivery data back to us as part of our regular review processes and will be able to give a clearer picture once that information is available.”

Greens take Ilkley in a major election upset

For 34 years, Anne Hawkesworth has represented Ilkley on Bradford Council, first as a Conservative and then as an Independent. But as of last week, that impressive stretch has come to an end. Ilkley now has a new district councillor: Ros Brown.

The former headteacher and former Ilkley Town Council deputy mayor has become the first Green Party councillor to represent Ilkley in what was, in the end, a very tightly fought contest with the Conservative candidate Joanne Sugden (Anne, this time around, trailed in third place by a reasonable margin).

Ros picked up 2,414 votes (38%), just 167 more than Joanne, who got 2,247 votes (35%). Anne picked up 988 votes (15%), markedly less than the 2,084 votes (29%) she got in 2021. In fourth place was Labour’s Michael Baldwin, who got 694 votes (11%), followed by the Liberal Democrat candidate John Briggs, who could only manage 58 voters (1%).

In her campaign material, Ros said: “Our town deserves councillors on Bradford Council who will stand up for the issues important to the people who live here … I have an excellent track record of standing up for Ilkley’s residents of all ages. I have campaigned against cuts that our town faces, demanded action on dangerous pollution in the River Wharfe and helped residents resolve many different issues from potholes to litter.”

Speaking to The Ilkley Journal – we’ve got an interview with the now former councillor coming out later this month – Anne said that the result had been “quite a shock” but that she was “proud of her record” in Ilkley. In terms of what’s next, there’s a well-deserved holiday in Spain and then she’ll look to getting back to being active in the community outside of politics.

“I would, in some form or the other, like to be an ambassador for Ilkley, for culture,” she said. “I think it's a role that can make a huge difference to the town.”

Elsewhere, Jane Sellers from the Conservatives, a longtime resident, picked up the Ilkley West seat for Ilkley Town Council, winning 1,024 votes to Ros’ 867. She had said before the election that she wanted to give back to the community that she had called home for many years.

Locals launch new community action group Fairness for Ilkley District

Locals in Ilkley have set up a new community action group to act as a voice for residents in Ilkley and the surrounding areas, who they suggest have been “increasingly overlooked over the past few years”.

Fairness for Ilkley District, which describes itself as an apolitical group, said that one of its key aims is to ensure there is a more balanced relationship between locals, Ilkley Town Council and Bradford Council over key matters.

Recent controversial and divisive developments in Ilkley, like the traffic calming measures – which a parish poll had voted against – the closure of Golden Butts Household Waste Recycling Centre and talk of the possible closure of Ilkley Lido – which, according to the Ilkley Pool and Lido Community Group, operated at a £280,000 loss for April 2022 to March 2023 – have inspired the formation of the group.

“Our aim isn't to point the finger or assign blame, but to focus on securing a fairer deal for Ilkley and the surrounding district,” said Fiona Mann, who manages Fairness for Ilkley District’s Facebook group.

Posting on Twitter, one of the members of the campaign group, described the recent Ilkley Town Council meeting as “one of virtue signalling and self-promotion on steroids”.

“Not once did I hear anybody who had any concern for the wellbeing of the vast majority of residents,” he said. “Lots of emphasis on fairly inconsequential matters as opposed to any ‘big picture’ considerations or initiatives. Also, very little, if any, mention of the 20mph zone and speed bump story, but lots of spin, back-slapping and self-congratulation.”

THE LEAD 📰

Annual Ilkley Town Meeting delivers few surprises

In the end, and not necessarily in a bad way, the annual Ilkley Town Meeting delivered few surprises, little drama and minimal debate, wrapping up ahead of time with plenty of evening light left to accompany the editor as he walked home through Ilkley on a fresh spring evening.

There were, we estimate, close to 100 people in attendance – but don’t quote us on that, as it’s hard to count folks incognito – including representatives of several organisations, some of which were presenting.

Karl Milner, the town mayor, kicked off the meeting with a mention of the recent local elections, which he described as being “hard fought”, with the outcome reflecting Ilkley being a “community of many views”, with more people across the political spectrum now being represented.

He said that over the past year, three questions have dominated the work of the council: "First, are we to become the provider of last resort for public services? Second, how to improve the town for the next generation? And third, what can we do to improve ourselves as a council?”

Some of the highlights of the council’s work, Karl went on to say, include passing on resident and Ilkley Clean River Group’s concerns about water quality to Yorkshire Water – which has played a role in Yorkshire Water’s decision to invest £60 million in wastewater treatment works and storm overflows in Ilkley – supporting initiatives like the Tram-Train proposal and appointing a new town warden.

Attendees to the town meeting then heard from a number of groups and organisations, including the Ilkley Great Get Together, which is part of an annual national initiative that brings communities together (it was founded by The Jo Cox Foundation).

The speaker, whose name we unfortunately missed, was there to talk about the ongoing and critical work it does to provide food support to schoolchildren during the school holidays, which has been in operation “sadly for some years now”. She explained that the number of schoolchildren in the town who qualify for free school meals has been increasing over the last few years – with no sign of letting up.

“The Great Get Together are hoping that the town council will be able to increase the funding to provide a vegetable box or voucher to cover not just Christmas this year, but also the November half term because that falls over the winter period when family incomes are particularly stretched because of high fuel bills,” she went on to say.

“I've only been volunteering for a year. What struck me from the beginning and still astounds me is the huge numbers of people and groups and churches and charities and schools and local businesses who get who come together to make this food initiative happen. It's a staggering number of people in groups who make this happen.”

The hosts for the town meeting, the Clarke Foley Community Hub – formerly known as the Clarke Foley Community Centre (a subtle but important rebrand) – also provided locals with an update on the progress it has made since the charity went public last year with news that it was experiencing serious financial difficulties.

The manager, Joe Short, explained that a dramatic increase in rent costs and other factors had resulted in the community hub having to subsidise its losses on a monthly basis from its reserves – and had this continued, it was very likely that the charity would have ended up closing its doors a little further down the road (within two or so years).

The hub started to think about what it needed to do to put in place changes to turn this around and began having conversations with, among others, Ilkley Town Council on ways that the latter could offer it support.

“They [Ilkley Town Council] positively challenged us to demonstrate that we’re a sustainable organisation and that we had a plan for getting out of this situation,” said Tom. “Our treasurer produced a three-point turnaround plan on how we intend to do that – to sustainably increase our revenue – and we've made great strides.”

This has included increasing the number of events at the community hub, refurbishing the cafe and identifying new sources of funding, which Tom acknowledged the Clarke Foley Community Centre had been particularly poor at doing in recent years.

Joe said: “That's where our conversation has led to and we’ve realised that we need some funding to get some professional support and consultation so that we can prepare a bid that will really protect the hub in the long term.”

This has, in part, led to Ilkley Town Council awarding the charity with a £12,000 grant earlier this year.

“The money is intended to support the appointment of a bid writer to apply for funding that will ensure the centre’s future as a community hub,” the town council explained. “Six thousand will be provided upon receipt of the signed grant agreement and a further £6,000 will be released when a bid is submitted for further funding.”

THE ILKLEY JOURNAL VIEW 📢

It has been a long, soggy and grey year – longer, in fact, with the Met Office confirming last month that the last 18 months were the wettest since records began – so the recent spate of sunshine and warm weather brings much cheer. It means we can get out and garden, eat out – literally, alfresco – and get a healthy dose of natural vitamin D.

But it’s also a reminder of the very real impact climate change is having on our planet, compounded by years of complacency, poor accountability and underinvestment in tackling the crisis at a national and international level.

Records, like the above, are being broken all the time – and not in a good way. The world’s oceans, for instance, have recorded their highest-ever temperatures. Last month was officially the hottest April on record – and the 11th month in a row to record record-breaking temperatures. And 2023 was the hottest year on record, with the World Meteorological Organization’s secretary-general, Petteri Taalas, describing it as “a deafening cacophony of broken records”.

Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t bode well for the foreseeable future, with a significant number of leading scientists telling the Guardian that the agreed goal among nations of limiting global temperature rise to below 1.5C by 2100 is now unachievable – and that it is increasingly likely that it will rise to a catastrophic 2.5C. Population displacement. More extreme weather events. Increased drought. Diminishing food security. We could go on.

Yet, hope spurs us on. However slow it may seem, there is momentum in the global movement to tackle climate change. While governments dawdle, individuals and organisations, like Kate Raworth and Black Mountains College in Wales, march forward and break new ground, inspiring more and more people to get involved in securing the future of the planet, whether it’s recycling more, creating new technologies or putting pressure on politicians locally and nationally to radically change the way they respond to climate change to the benefit of all. Ilkley Town Council, Bradford Council and West Yorkshire Combined Authority – this is your opportunity to blaze a trail.

WHAT’S ON 🎭

Solar Gallery: The Overlooked

In a world as incredibly busy as ours, where there’s never enough time to do all the things we need and have to do, with more time increasingly spent online from the crack of dawn until late at night – whether it’s for work, leisure or in-between our professional and personal lives – we often forget about what is around us, from the charmingly mundane to the incredibly beautiful.

Or, more problematically, we don’t even know what it is we’re missing, unable to “stand and stare”, as the poet William Henry Davies so eloquently put it in his iconic early 20th century poem, Leisure (What is this life if, full of care/We have no time to stand and stare/No time to stand beneath the boughs/And stare as long as sheep or cows …)

This theme, of the “overlooked”, forms the basis of a new exhibition at Ilkley Manor House, which aims to shine a spotlight on everything that seems to go unnoticed – and all through the gaze of an artist’s eye.

“Think about the understated beauty of crumpled paper or shredded cardboard in packaging,” explains Ilkley Manor House. “What about shadows of clouds on a hill or patches of light from a window? Consider all the female artists who have been overlooked in art history.”

Solar Gallery: The Overlooked at Ilkley Manor House runs until 7 July 2024

An audience with Sir Ian Botham

Cricket legend, TV personality, Brexit-backer and lord – he joined the House of Lords in 2020 – Ian Botham is one of those larger-than-life public figures everyone has an opinion about.

He’s in town later this month to talk about his life at King's Hall, which will, we anticipate, include his successful career as a cricketer – he’s considered to be one of the greatest all-rounders of his generation if not in the entire history of the game – his media work, from being a team captain on A Question of Sport to writing columns for the likes of the The Telegraph (the title of one of his more fairly recent pieces from 2022 reads, Left-wing protestors are self-righteous narcissists, giving you a little flavour of his political leanings), and what he gets up these days as a crossbench peer.

An Audience with Sir Ian Botham at King’s Hall is on Tuesday 28 May from 8pm

SPORT ⚽️

Ilkley Town AFC Women: investing in the future

Homegrown talent. That’s the secret behind the success of Ilkley Town AFC Women’s First Team, which made its own history last week by securing promotion to the Premier Division of the West Riding County Womens Football League, the team’s manager, Claire Armstrong, told The Ilkley Journal.

You see, a lot of the players who helped Ilkley Town AFC Women’s First Team finish top of the First Division with an impressive 16 wins and only two losses, have come through the club’s increasingly popular junior girl's development pathway, which starts as young as the under-6s.

Claire has been a key figure in overseeing the development of the champions as they’ve exited the junior pathway – it goes up to the under-16s – and transitioned into the senior team. The average age of the squad is under-20.

And that’s no bad thing, as Man Utd’s class of ‘92 will tell you, who, way back when, were written off by former footballer turned television pundit Alan Hansen. He famously remarked, “you'll never win anything with kids” and the rest, as we all know, is history.

This team, explains Claire, “are maturing into a really technically strong squad”, one that is hungry to keep improving and to keep pushing forward. It’s an Ilkley Town AFC thing – the club is keen on investing more in women’s football and recently entered a development team into the fourth division of West Riding County Womens Football League. Managed by Steve Orchard, they finished sixth.

The club also now has over 300 registered girls and women on its books – a number it hopes will continue to grow. With the women’s game as popular as it has ever been – BBC analysis earlier this year found that there are now twice as many registered female football teams in England today than there were just seven years ago – it’s a surefire bet.

“Finishing as league one champions and getting promotion was the aim for the season and I'm absolutely delighted we've managed to achieve our goal,” said Clare.

“The standard of women's football is becoming higher all the time due to the increasing popularity of the women's game. I'm incredibly proud of my young side – they’re only going to continue to improve and we are looking forward to the new and what will be a difficult challenge in the premier division next season.”