'Lessons learned' by Leeds council after school closure U-turn
A council has said it will learn lessons after it was forced to reverse its plan to close a primary school.Leeds City Council had intended to shut Queensway Primary, in Yeadon, after saying a decline in pupil numbers and financial pressures had put its long-term sustainability at risk.However, the authority was forced to shelve the plan after parents launched a legal challenge over the way a consultation was carried out ahead of the decision.Now a set of recommendations to improve future school consultations have been published in a "lessons learned" report by the council.
The report found that parents, school staff and councillors felt the consultation period was not long enough, although meetings were held in the run-up to the decision.It also said the plan had caused "stress and upset for children, their families and the wider community", particularly as they faced a similar closure threat in 2022.It added that it had also caused concern over the welfare of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
At a children and families meeting earlier, Otley & Yeadon councillor Ryk Downes said: "Parents were coming to me saying they couldn't find alternative places for their children based on their SEND needs."We have got to sort out the problem of pupil numbers in Aireborough but at the moment the solution isn't there."Councillors were told that a wider "area-based" approach to the decline in pupil numbers would be taken moving forward.Headteacher Mark Duce, who has been at the school for four years, announced last week he and other staff had taken the difficult decision to leave the school due to a "lack of clarity provided regarding the long-term future of Queensway".
Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
32 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
TOM UTLEY: Please don't ask me to rate my Airbnb hostess whose house was full of anti-Tory cartoons and even a Rishi 'Dope on a Rope' soap
Aren't you heartily fed up with those constant demands to 'rate and review your experience' every time you buy anything on the internet, book tickets for a theatre, read a book on Kindle, call a plumber or pay your Vehicle Excise Duty through the DVLA website? Why should we have to act as unpaid critics of all the goods and services we receive? Indeed, my instinct is generally to ignore these impertinent requests, remembering the wise words often attributed to that great 18th century sage, Dr Johnson: 'No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.' Worst of all are those pleas to give up 'just five minutes of your time' to complete a questionnaire – and 10 minutes later, you're still barely half way through the list of fatuous questions. Sorry, but I have better things to do with my precious time, such as staring out of the window at the sorry state of our lawn under Mrs U's self-imposed hosepipe ban, and wondering when it's ever going to rain again. True, I make an occasional exception to my vow of silence, when I feel a duty to warn others against crooked dealers or shoddy goods. But when I'm quietly satisfied with something I've bought, or the service I've received, I tend to remain… well, quiet. Take the other day, when I placed an order on the internet for yet another six bouncy balls for our dog, Minnie, who makes a point of losing at least two balls every month on our daily walks. The order duly arrived the following day, as it usually does with Amazon Prime. (Yes, I know, I'm an appalling hypocrite, publicly mourning the slow death of the High Street, while hastening it by patronising the American giant; but I'm far from alone in that respect, as a certain lavish wedding in Venice this week tends to testify.) As for the balls themselves, what can I say except that they were spherical and bouncy, just as you'd expect bouncy balls to be? I'd have had a bit more to say about them, to be sure, if they'd turned out to be triangular, or made of lead. But then the inevitable message arrived, asking me to rate the seller according to three specified criteria, from five stars for 'excellent' to one star for 'awful', and write a review of my purchases, complete with a headline and a photograph or a video. Well, even for a hack like me, who has made a living from writing for 50-odd years, I reckon there's only so much that can usefully be written about six bouncy balls for a dog, before the wells of inspiration run dry. So Amazon's plea went straight into my delete file, along with most of the others. I say 'most' and not 'all' of the others, because, when I've ridden in an Uber, or stayed in an Airbnb, I generally make a point of rating my driver, or writing something nice about my hosts and the accommodation they provide. This is partly because it seems rude to be driven in someone else's car, or to stay in a stranger's house, without having the courtesy to register my appreciation. But if truth be told, it is also because, in the case of Uber and Airbnb, it's not only the passenger or guest who is invited to review the service provider. Drivers and hosts are also asked to rate or review their customers. Now, the last thing I want is to have a low passenger rating on Uber, since this could mean that, in future, drivers might prefer not to pick me up. For that reason, I'm always careful to be civil to my driver, commiserating with him when we're stuck in traffic, thanking him profusely for the ride and never failing to tip at the end of it, whatever I may actually think of my experience. Indeed, it slightly rankles with me that my current rating is a mere 4.92. I'd be interested to know how on earth I dropped that 0.08 of a point, when I'm so determined to behave impeccably. Similarly, I go out of my way to be charming to Airbnb hosts, while Mrs U always ensures that we leave a host's property in immaculate order, with everything washed up, dusted and hoovered within an inch of its life. As for my reason for writing those appreciative reviews, I fear that these can be read by other potential hosts, and I don't want to earn a reputation for myself as the sort of guest who is likely to write something disparaging or rude. Just recently, however, I've found myself impaled on the horns of a dilemma. A few weeks ago we stayed in an Airbnb in Somerset – where we were attending a joint birthday party for our youngest grandson and his mum – and ever since then, I've been pestered with 'reminders' that I've yet to review our experience. My problem is that I found almost everything about our stay entirely satisfactory, but with one glaring exception. Our hostess and her husband were charming to us. The little self-contained flat where we stayed in their house was immaculately clean. The bed was comfortable. The fridge had been generously stocked with all sorts of snacks and all the basics we could possibly need. We also had the run of their beautifully kept garden. To cap it all, they've now written me a flattering review. The only thing wrong, from my point of view, was that our hostess clearly harboured a visceral hatred of Tories, coupled with contempt for anyone who backed Brexit. Whisper it softly, but these are two categories into which I myself fall. It's not because we discussed politics that I know her views. We didn't. No, it's because she had adorned the walls with anti-Tory drawings, and left out a book of her own crude cartoons, viciously attacking the party. It was full of scenes such as Boris Johnson slapping a nurse in the face while others banged saucepans for the NHS. Meanwhile, a bar of soap in the bathroom bore a picture of Rishi Sunak, under the legend 'Dope on a Rope'. Even the marmalade she provided came with an angry political message. It bore a label, mocked up to look like those on the jam produced by Wilkin & Sons Ltd, emblazoned with the following words: 'By appointment to the highest bidder. Tories. Spreading bittersweet smarmalade. 'Conservatives. Preserving their wealth on our daily bread since 2010. Brexit. Slease [sic]. Liars.' Now, I'm a tolerant fellow, myself, and I don't mind at all about the political views of my Airbnb hosts, just so long as their accommodation is comfortable and they are courteous to me. Nor have I any wish to jeopardise my hostess's chances of attracting future guests – or my own of finding future places to stay – by writing a disparaging view of her decor on the app. After all, I know how hard it can be to make ends meet – even, dare I say it, under Labour. But then again, do I perhaps have a duty to warn other Tories, and members of the majority who backed Brexit, that they may feel a little unwelcome, surrounded by all that ranting Lefty propaganda? If my recent hostess will take advice from this evil Tory, I reckon she would be wise to replace the marmalade and the soap, and perhaps move some of that artwork to her own part of the house. After all, future guests may be less inclined than I to keep silent. But how do readers rate the quality of my suggestion, on a scale of five stars for 'excellent', to one star for 'awful'? On second thoughts, don't feel you have to answer that!
Times
36 minutes ago
- Times
The cost of chillin' — is air conditioning worth it?
Restless nights of tossing and turning in bed have become a common theme for people across the UK in recent weeks due to the heatwave, leading many households to consider getting air conditioning. The UK has typically been averse to getting air con in the home, often baffling tourists — particularly Americans — during these increasingly hot summer months. Yet while government regulations have ordered housebuilders to ensure all new homes mitigate overheating, most residential properties in the UK are still designed with the key purpose of keeping the heat in. Oliver Novakovic, the head of technical and innovation at Barratt Redrow, the UK's largest housebuilder, says air-conditioning units are not on the company's agenda. 'Air conditioning is not something that comes up when we do our customer research, people are more concerned about how to keep heating costs down in winter.' Yet attitudes seem to be changing. The proportion of UK homes overheating in the summer has jumped from 20 per cent in 2011 to 82 per cent in 2022, according to a paper published this month in the journal Energy Research & Social Science. The researchers found that this had also led to the use of air conditioners in UK homes rising from 3 per cent to 20 per cent over the same period. So what are the pros and cons of getting air con at home — and how do you go about it? We break down the key questions. A portable air conditioner is a stand-alone unit about the size of a kitchen bin that can be plugged into a socket and moved to any room. This makes them especially good for those in rented accommodation. They also do not require professional installation and units start at about £150. Natalie Hitchins, the head of technology content at the consumer rights group Which?, says: 'For renters or those who want a quick, icy blast, freestanding portable air conditioners are the best bet. Fitted air conditioning is significantly more expensive than a portable unit, and installation can be complex and disruptive.' A portable unit works the same way as a fitted air conditioner — pulling in warm air from a room and expelling cool air — but it has an exhaust hose attached to it to get rid of the heat, rather than having a section that sits outside the house. This means a portable air conditioner always needs to be near an open window or door where the hose can expel hot air. This can cause issues for people at night if they want to draw the blinds or close a door. • Read more expert advice on property, interiors and home improvement Portable air conditioners are technically cheaper to run, with the comparison site Uswitch finding that a portable unit would cost an average of £17.22 to run for nine hours a day for seven days, compared with £46.49 for a built-in unit. But they are not as efficient as fitted air conditioners, with the single hose design usually still drawing some warm air into the room, meaning they take more power and are likely to be left running for longer to cool a room. They are also louder. Joe Stein, the director of AllStar Electrical & Air Conditioning, a London-based firm, says: 'The problem with portable units is they tend to be very loud, generating the same sort of noise you used to hear from the old fitted units, and they also suck up a lot of electricity.' Stein says his calculations for running air conditioning for nine hours a day would put a portable unit at £21.92 a week and a fitted unit at £10.96 a week. A fitted unit tends to be more energy-efficient, quieter and sleeker looking. The cheapest and simplest option is to have the air-conditioning box mounted to a high or low position on a wall inside your house. Units can also be installed in the ceiling or even in cupboards, known as concealed units. Air conditioning can also be installed in the loft of a home, with ducts distributing the cool air to different rooms, although this is often tricky to retrofit and is better to get done when first doing a loft installation. A fitted unit requires space for one section — the external condenser — to be outside the house, and will need to be installed by a registered gas engineer. The inside and outside sections are connected by insulated pipes that are typically about 3-5m in length but can reach as far as 30m, or 100m on bigger commercial systems. The most simple and cheapest fitted unit will just have one indoor and one outdoor section, serving one room and is called a single-split unit. A more complex system is multi-split units, in which there are a maximum of five indoor units connected to one external condenser, catering to different rooms in the house. Stein says a multi-split unit is useful if you live in a block of flats with just a balcony to store the outdoor unit, but the cost of installation is more expensive, and will also usually require redecorating if the pipes need to run through the ceiling to get from a bedroom to the balcony. Almost any type of property can have fitted air conditioning, but some types of homes will require more work, according to Stein. Terraced houses are more difficult than detached houses because the outer part of the unit can only be fixed at the front or back of the house, rather than the sides, so the pipes have to run a longer distance if they are on a multi-split system. Stein adds: 'The most difficult property tends to be flats because you have to get the machines up to the balcony, cut the ceilings and plasterboard to run the pipes through it, and then redecorate the area.' The installation cost can be significant. Stein says: 'It all depends on the type of installation, but the cost of a fitted unit will start at around £1,500-£1,600 for the smallest type of unit in a small bedroom.' This means that installing a fitted unit into five bedrooms would cost a minimum of about £7,500. The installation of a single-split unit takes about half a day. Most engineers will visit the property beforehand, although some do video calls, and companies such as Boxt, a website that organises installations, enables customers to provide the necessary information online. Whether it is a fitted or portable unit, air conditioners are likely to improve your ability to sleep during particularly hot nights and your mood during the day if working from home. Adam Knight, the lead engineer at Boxt, says: 'Air conditioning gives you consistent, controllable comfort, better sleep and improved air quality. It's also quieter and more energy-efficient than people realise, especially when compared with most portable fans or electric heaters.' He adds that modern fitted air-conditioning systems also can be flipped to heat rooms during the winter, offering longer-term value overall. They also usually hit the required temperature quicker than radiators that rely on boilers. Those suffering from bad hayfever also benefit, with air conditioning filtering allergens such as pollen and dust. This all comes at a price, though. The running costs will depend on the unit's power and size, as well as the temperature of the room it is cooling, but Natalie Mathie, an energy expert at Uswitch, says: 'It's easy to build up a hefty bill, especially during a heatwave.' Portable air-conditioning units use about 1 kilowatt of power an hour, according to Uswitch, costing about 27p an hour to run, while a built-in unit uses 2.7 kilowatts a hour, costing about 73p an hour. In contrast, an electric pedestal fan running for nine hours a day for seven days would only cost £1.03. There is also the environmental impact. Novakovic says: 'The issue with air conditioning is it introduces a lot of carbon. You don't really want to bring air conditioning into homes because of the amount of carbon it would create.' ● Are heat pumps financially worth it? Between now and 2050, cooling technologies including air-conditioning units are predicted to become the biggest contributor to growing energy demand, according to the International Energy Agency. In the UK, hydrofluorocarbons — the most commonly used refrigerants in the units — are being phased out due to being potent greenhouse gases, but more eco-friendly alternatives, such as hydrofluoroolefins, can still create ecological damage when they break down in the atmosphere. Heat pumps Phil Strickland, the technical director at 21 Degrees, which provides energy-efficient installations for the home, says: 'Nearly all heat pumps can run in reverse mode and do cooling, reducing the temperature in all your rooms by three to four degrees.' However, this only works if the heat pump is powering emitters such as underfloor heating or fan coil units, but not for radiators. New-build homes Government regulations introduced in 2022 ordered all housebuilders to ensure that the temperature in their properties' bedrooms overnight does not exceed 26C for a prolonged period. Novakovic says: 'It's been a positive in that the sector is considering overheating in more detail than it did previously.' He says housebuilders are more focused on bringing better ventilation through the home, as well as innovations such as shaded glazing, which allows light but not heat in. Strickland adds: 'You can now get glazing where the glass reflects the sun back out again with a special coating, so it lets the light in, but reflects the UV light back out.' ● Welcome to the world of 'personal cooling tech' Fans Electric fans are a much cheaper option to buy and run than air conditioning and can cool you as long as the temperature is less than 35C. However, it does not actively cool the air, just moves it round, with the wind on the skin helping to make sweat evaporate more quickly. Shading and curtains A lot of heat in our homes comes through windows, especially those that are south-facing. Closing curtains once the outside temperature starts to climb helps to prevent some of this heat getting into the room. Outdoor shutters and inward opening windows help to cool the house and are a common sight in Mediterranean countries — and they are simple to install. A DIY version of this is to hang a sheet over the outside of your window. Wet floor A simple trick to bring the heat down in a room is mopping a tiled floor, and leaving the water to evaporate, cooling the tiles. But this will increase humidity in the house.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
MY LIFE IN A GARDEN by Carl Gorham: Nature? It will ruin your garden
MY LIFE IN A GARDEN by Carl Gorham (Ireton Press £8.99, 272pp) What could be more relaxing and fulfilling than a spot of gardening? Fresh air, plants, birdsong, the hum of a lawnmower . . . no wonder barely an episode of Gardeners' World goes by without Monty Don earnestly assuring us that 'gardening is good for your mental health'. Yet the reality is that gardening can also be intensely frustrating and disappointing. Plants get eaten by slugs, weeds abound, and your carefully nurtured seedlings mysteriously wither and die. So it's refreshing to read a memoir which, while centred around the restoration of a garden, is written by someone who just can't see the point of gardening. 'You make something beautiful in a garden and nature ruins it,' Carl Gorham grouses. Far from being a healing interaction with the natural world, he regards working in the garden as 'a dour, repetitive series of mucky jobs'. He is so uninterested in gardening that when he lived for several years in a flat in south London which had two burned mattresses in the front garden, it didn't occur to him to move them. Yet in 2005 he became the owner of a house in Norfolk which had a three-acre garden with 'hedges, beds, shrubs, plants, a sunken valley, a beech maze, a firepit and nine lawns'. He and his wife Vikki had bought the property on impulse, swept away by images of growing their own vegetables, holding parties in the garden, and sleeping under the stars on summer nights. Owning a place like this was a sign of their confidence in the future: Vikki had endured years of treatment for cancer and was now apparently in remission. Sadly, she died suddenly, two years after they acquired the house. From then on, Gorham faced one challenge after another. Not only was he struggling with his grief and raising his young daughter, he also had to cope with the death of his mother, his own battle with cancer and then a nervous breakdown. Not surprisingly, the garden was neglected and became 'a creeping, gloomy presence reaching out in all directions like an invading army'. Eventually he and his new partner, Emma, decided the house was unaffordable and would have to be let. Gorham was put in charge of restoring the garden, and it's his account of his bungling attempts to knock it into shape that is the heart of this warm, funny and sometimes very moving book. He mines plenty of wry humour from his struggles with the garden, which he views as 'a disobedient child I've been put in charge of and am having no luck in pacifying'. But as he toils over the weed-infested paths and the bramble-choked borders, he comes to realise that, despite his lack of knowledge, the garden has sustained him through 15 years of ups and downs. Gradually, he makes his peace with it. He and the garden are 'like two old lags who've set aside past differences and agreed to work together on a final job'.
