Letters
Please send your letters to Ruth Taylor at the.reporter@leeds.ac.uk or send them by post to: The Reporter, Employee communications team, Room 12.72, E C Stoner Building.
All letters will be published at the editor's discretion. Please provide your full name, honorifics, and the name of your department or school. We will not as a rule publish anonymous letters (unless a name is supplied to the editor), 'round robin' letters, letters that have been published elsewhere, or letters that have also been sent to University colleagues for action. Letters may be cut (for space) and we will indicate when this has happened. If writers have asked questions, we will attempt to answer them. We may add an editor's note to correct any factual errors.
PUT A LID ON BOTTLED WATER
One way the University could demonstrate
its commitment to good environmental
policies would be to stop selling bottled
water at its catering outlets, and to ensure
drinkable tap water is readily available.
(Some taps around the campus are labelled ‘drinking water’, raising doubts about the quality of the water when taps are not so labelled.)
The shop in the Student Union building advertises bottled water which is claimed to be “ethical” because the profits go to projects providing clean water for people in Africa. But it cannot be ethical to waste energy transporting bottled water around the country when wholesome drinking water is delivered through pipes with a much lower use of energy. If you want to help people in Africa, please drink tap water and give the cost of bottled water to an appropriate charity.
Dr Alan Slomson, School of Mathematics
WATCH OUT - CYCLISTS ABOUT
Can cyclists read? Or does eco-superiority
translate into myopia? At the end of the
path in front of the Clothworkers Hall a
sign reads clearly: ‘Cyclists dismount’,
yet barely a single cyclist swooping
down from Cavendish Road obeys this
instruction.
It is perhaps just as well that ears plugged into MP3 players cannot hear the complaints of endangered pedestrians.
Professor David Lindley, School of English
EARLY BIRD CATCHES PARKING WORM
At one time you could park in the side
streets, ie. Clarendon Place, Lyddon Terrace
and Springfield Mount, at 7.35am. As the
parking fees rose and more people started to
park in the side streets, you had to get there
earlier and earlier. Until it got to the state
during the middle of this year that you had
to get there by 6.50am at the latest to get a
parking space.
Now that double yellow lines have been painted all the way up Springfield Mount, the cars are searching for somewhere else to park.
I now have to drop off my wife and a friend who I give a lift to at 6.25am so that I can find a parking place at 6.40am in the side streets, and I know other members of staff are having to do the same thing.
Come June/July when part of Charles Morris Hall is to be demolished and rebuilding work takes place, I have been told that double yellow lines will be put down Mount Preston Street and Cromer Terrace. When this happens, where are all the cars going to park that already park in these streets? And when the swimming pool is built at the back of the sports hall, where will all the cars go when the car park is turned into a swimming pool?
I have been waiting for a parking permit for about seven years, but I still don’t seem to have got anywhere near the top of the list. How is it that some posts come with a parking permit allocation, whilst others come with a free permit? Why can’t everyone from the Vice-hancellor down pay and obtain a permit by applying for it?
If you are a woman, you can get a parking permit within six weeks of applying for it, but I have been unable to obtain one. I understand that it is to ensure their safety, but is this not sexual discrimination?
It is ironic that I cannot get a parking permit, but contractors’ vans can park in the purple zone car park. Surely, these places should be given to staff and let the contractors fight for the parking spaces in the side streets.
Chris Nicholson
This letter has been abridged.
Reply: The University provides a much higher level of parking provision than any other employer in the city centre, however demand still exceeds supply.
Current council policies prevent us from increasing the number of parking spaces on site, and future changes in government and council policies, together with our own building programme, are likely to significantly reduce parking provision even further over the next few years.
Accordingly, as part of the University’s ‘Green Travel Plan’, we are working with Metro and other agencies to encourage staff and students to use alternative means of travel.
The University does need to allow contractors access to carry out essential capital and maintenance work, so there will always be a number of contractors’ vehicles on site, but we do try and keep these to a minimum.
In regards to the swimming pool project, there will be a temporary loss of car parking while the project proceeds, and probably an overall reduction in numbers when the development is completed.
While security has responsibility for the main campus area, the surrounding public streets are the council’s responsibility. The council has considered proposals for various residents’ parking and other permit schemes to address congestion in these areas, but to date these have not been progressed. The University operates a parking permit system based on an agreed policy, but it does not give higher priority to females on the grounds of gender. Additional points are allocated to members of staff who are driving any children under 12 on their way to or from work.
This policy was reviewed last year by the University’s transport policy review group, which concluded that on balance the current system should remain unchanged. However, it will be reviewed in three years’ time when there will hopefully be a clearer view on both the city’s transport policy and Metro’s rapid transit proposals.
Given the current demand on spaces, unfortunately the reality is that we cannot accommodate all who desire to park on the site.
Robert Sladdin, Director of Estate Services