It’s brilliant news that the government has finally acted and Arriva, which operates the Northern rail franchise, will hand back control to the government this week. It has been an absolutely horrendous period for rail passengers including those who travel to and from Woodlesford, in the Rothwell ward. A new timetable worsened the ongoing appalling situation with Northern falling well short and providing a terrible service for local people.

Local people deserve better than they have been treated by failing Northern. It’s great news that the service will be taken into public control. Residents in Woodlesford and Oulton and Rothwell who use the train service from Woodlesford station are sick of trains being continually late, missing or packed onto the trains like sardines. It’s long overdue that government has finally listened to local people.

I hope this means that local people can expect a better, affordable and reliable service as they should be able to expect from all services.

A leak of the government review into HS2 has revealed that costs could escalate again to £106 billion, but is recommending that it goes ahead.

It is quite simply out of control. HS2 not only will cost the earth in financial terms, but also in terms of destroying the natural world causing, disruption, upheaval and devastation to communities along its path. The part which includes the line tearing through Woodlesford and Oulton in the Rothwell ward is phase 2b. The review recommends that work on phase 2b from the West Midlands to Manchester and Leeds should be paused for six months to investigate if it could be a mix of conventional and high-speed lines, according to the Financial Times, which has seen a copy of the paper.

Now the big question is what’s the point, is it worth it? To which most round here would say no. And I support them. But if it is to go ahead, then it shouldn’t be a bargain basement version for up north. It’s wrong to penny pinch and not spend money where needed to alleviate some of the concerns of our communities. If HS2 is to go ahead anyway,despite our objections, then we need to compensate local people properly. We need to invest in minimising the impact which means more tunnels and less viaducts.

However, both these things would make HS2 cost even more, be even more over budget, and deliver even less value for tax payers.

It’s a downright insult that down south people would get the supermarket equivalent of ‘Morrisons The Best’ whilst all we get up north is the ‘Morrisons Savers’ version (as usual) by saving money on tunnelling and such like. Well our communities are worth much more than that!

But what is the point? Is it really worth it? We know HS2 is a vanity project that will almost certainly be well be out of date by the time it’s built. It costs far too much and causes too much harm to outweigh any benefits. All this money on a vanity project when the rest of the north’s public transport infrastructure is crying out for improvement.

The irony is that a lot of people round here who travel to London by train go from Wakefield where the fastest journey is one and three quarter hours and standard ones just two hours. Local people who would be impacted by HS2 running through here would then face the further disruption and extra journey time of travelling in the wrong direction to Leeds to catch a train to London!

A huge part of the cost of HS2 is because it is ‘high speed’. This has nothing to do with the very real and practical problem of increasing capacity on the east coast. Increasing capacity could be achieved at less cost and with less disruption leaving lots of money left over to invest in better local transport infrastructure. What matters to people isn’t the speed of the journey from Leeds station to London station, but the overall journey time from their front door to the door they are visiting in London. HS2 potentially makes this worse, not better.

HS2 has been and continues to be a huge issue for the Rothwell ward.

I am personally opposed to HS2 and it is also the official position of Rothwell Labour Party to oppose HS2 for these reasons:

1. Devastating impact on local communities, not just in Woodlesford, but in many communities all along the route.
2. Escalating cost that could be better invested in other public transport infrastructure improvements including local trains and a mass transit system (e.g. tram) in Leeds and West Yorkshire; and better trans-Pennine rail connections the so called HS3.
3. The technology behind HS2 could well be out of date before the trains even start running.
4. Grossly incompetent HS2 management who even if the other three reasons didn’t exist couldn’t be trusted to deliver the project.

We must now wait and see what decision the new government will make. Any decision on the future of HS2, compensation and the route is now totally the responsibility of Boris Johnson’s new government and Alec Shelbrooke, our local Conservative MP. I am watching and waiting to see what our MP does to support and stand up for our local community.

As always, December is a great issue of LS26 Local newszine which is full of pieces about the local area and free at local outlets. I’ve enjoyed writing a regular column since it first started in July 2018. I usually like to write about local issues and not too directly about politics, but for December I of course wrote about the general election as it’s such a huge decision which will impact massively on the whole LS26 area.

All the issues including this one and all the back issues can be read online here https://issuu.com/ls26local.

David Nagle is Elmet and Rothwell Labour Party’s parliamentary candidate in the forthcoming general election. David and I have worked very closely together as Rothwell councillors and I know he is one of the nicest and most genuine people you could hope to meet. He is also a tirelessly hard worker for the party and the community.

I’m so proud of Save Our Homes LS26 residents on their fantastic planning victory! The former coal board community in Oulton near the sports centre were delighted when they found out their homes have been saved. Well done to Leeds City Council for refusing to let the investment giant landlord Pemberstone flatten a whole working class community’s homes and replace with executive houses. I was very proud to tell my daughter our Labour council turned down the planning application. Well done everyone!

After almost two years of worry and uncertainty, residents of Sugar Hill Close and Wordsworth Drive in Oulton are celebrating the news that their homes have been saved from demolition.

At Leeds City Council’s Plans Panel, councillors rejected an application from investment giant Pemberstone (owners of the whole estate) which would have seen the demolition of 70 existing homes, many of which have been home to their current residents for decades. Elmet and Rothwell Labour Party has campaigned alongside local residents who have fought tirelessly to save their homes and community.

Decision day was a good day for the people of Sugar Hill Close, who have fought so hard for so long to protect the homes and community they love. As a local Labour Party we have been proud to stand with them, together standing up to these absentee landlords and their damaging plans. We believe that had this application been allowed to pass, not only would it have led to a net reduction in affordable housing in the Rothwell area and our already stretched city but the personal cost to these local people would have been immeasurable too. After working closely with the residents on this campaign for over two years I’m so delighted that Leeds City Council has listened and made the right decision on this.