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Playday in Leeds
 Free fun and games at Playday in Leeds Children around the city are being invited to come and join in a whole host of fun and games to celebrate Playday in Leeds. Free activities for children of all ages have been organised at Roundhay Park on Wednesday 4 August, between 10am and 3pm. Youngsters will be spoilt for choice at this year’s event, organised by the Leeds Play Network and Leeds City Council. Activities include a water slide, grass slide, go kart making, arts and crafts, face painting, bouncy castles, war hammer, kite making, sand play, pirates, story telling, dressing up, junk musical instruments, sports, obstacle course and soft play areas. Councillor Karen Renshaw, policy lead member for children’s services said: “Family life can be so hectic, and playtime is often the one thing that gets forgotten about. But play is such an important part of a child’s life and has a great impact on their future development, so it is vital that families set aside some time and space to allow their children to play. Councillor Renshaw added; “Having this year’s Playday event at Roundhay park will give us the opportunity for a wide range of activities both on the grass, in the woods and in the natural surroundings.” Youngsters will also be able to take part in activities which make the most of the natural surroundings including mud pie making, nature trail walks and den building. Playday is a national campaign and is the biggest annual play celebration in the country. As well as enabling children and families to have a great day out, the campaign also aims to raise awareness of the child's right to play and issues faced in creating opportunities to play. The Playday 2010 campaign is Our place - putting children at... Council Cabinet to visit Morley
 Eight of Leeds’ senior councillors will visit Morley this weekend in the first of several cabinet visits which will take place across the city. The councillors, many of who sit on Leeds City Council’s executive board and others who are part of the council’s cabinet, will take a tour of Morley town centre on Saturday (31 July) from 10am and meet residents and owners of local businesses. They will see first hand the benefits created since a town centre manager was appointed for Morley and Rothwell which includes a record number of visitors to the town centre, an increase in the number of shops and businesses and better partnership working across Morley. The councillors will meet the chair of the Rothwell Traders Association and the town centre manager for Pudsey and Armley before walking along Queen Street where they will meet key partners and visit the town’s market. Labour Councillor Richard Lewis, deputy leader of Leeds City Council, said: “This is the first of several visits by the cabinet to different areas of Leeds. The visits will allow us to meet local people and businesses, find out what is important to them and where we can make improvements across council services. Morley is a vibrant town with a busy centre and we all look forward to meeting lots of different people throughout the visit.” The councillors visiting Morley on Saturday (shown left to right about) are: Councillor Richard Lewis (Labour), deputy leader and executive member for development and regeneration; Councillor Peter Gruen (Labour), executive member for housing and neighbourhoods; Councillor Adam Ogilvie (Labour), executive member for leisure; Councillor Lucinda Yeadon (Labour), executive member for adult social care; Councillor Jane Dowson (Labour), executive member for learning; Councillor Bernard Atha (Labour), policy lead for central and corporate;... Singing in the Rain
 Thousands joined the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Labour Councillor Jim McKenna at Temple Newsam on Saturday for Opera in the Park. Despite the showers this was one show where rain would not stop play.... Fostering Success
 Glowing report for Leeds fostering service Leeds City Council’s fostering service is good and getting better according to inspectors. Following an inspection last month, the latest Ofsted report stated that all aspects of the fostering service were rated as good, which resulted in an overall rating of ‘good’ – a huge two point rise since last year, when it was rated as ‘inadequate’. Inspectors commented that the council’s fostering service is: “a strong service that provides good outcomes for children. It is well managed by an authority that is committed to its continued improvement. A significant investment of resources and management input has resulted in significant improvements and demonstrates a strong capacity to improve further.” Councillor Judith Blake, executive member responsible for children’s services said: “This is a fantastic achievement thanks to the hard work and dedication of a great team of people who go the extra mile on a daily basis for the city’s most vulnerable children and young people. “It is especially pleasing that the inspectors commented that the service has a strong capacity for further improvement, however we will not rest on our laurels, there is still work to be done and further improvements to be made. “ The report highlighted that the fostering service works very effectively with health and education services, which helps produce some very good outcomes for children and young people in the city. Children are supported to have appropriate contact with family members and arrangements to help them in the transition to adulthood work well. Inspectors commented that new developments within the fostering team supports the more effective recruitment of foster carers and assessments of new carers are thorough and of a good standard. At the last inspection the council was asked to do a number of things to improve... A new way of providing adult social care services
 Labour run Leeds City Council has given the green light to plans to roll out a brand new way for people to receive social care in Leeds from next month. The new system, called ‘self-directed support’ (SDS), is designed to be fairer, more flexible and more transparent than ever before, and is the result of decades of campaigning by disabled people and social care reformers. It will give people more say over their care – from assessment right through to choosing what kinds of services they use, and who provides them. Instead of being slotted into the ‘one-size-fits-all’ social services model of the past, people eligible for community-based support will now have the chance to be a bit more creative. Personal social care budgets can be received and managed by the individuals themselves, allowing them to pick and mix from a range of services from the council and independent care providers to best suit their needs. Crucially, from now on people will know exactly how much money is available to spend on their personal support. It can be used to pay for any services or items which genuinely help to improve people’s quality of life and address specific needs. Labour Councillor Lucinda Yeadon, executive board member with responsibility for adult social care said: “Personal budgets are a new way of delivering social care support, and will give people more choice and control over how they live their lives. “They are much more flexible than traditional direct payments, allowing people to mix and match the support they get using council services and independent providers. “We are positive that this new system will give our customers more freedom and flexibility and provide them with a service that fits their lives rather than them having to fit their lives around the service. “People... Hot Meals on Hot Wheels
Hot Meals On Hot Wheels The council’s meals on wheels service has changed this month and now provides hot meals to its customers on seven rather than just four days a week. Since 1 July, eligible customers across the city have been able to choose to have a hot meal delivered to their home every day of the week, 365 days a year if they wish. The new service provides meals which are freshly cooked in special vehicles on their way to customer’s homes, instead of being cooked en masse and kept warm for long periods of time. The scheme was piloted in the north east of the city about 18 months ago, and was so well received that it has now been rolled out across the whole city. Voluntary sector partners that currently deliver meals on behalf of the council were invited to apply for contracts for the new seven day service in autumn 2009. One such organisation is the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service (WRVS), who have been delivering meals in Otley and Poole for many years. They were successful in their application for a contract and have been awarded two new routes; Wetherby and Armley. The routes that they were previously delivering to have been taken over by the council with no disruption to service. Labour Councillor Lucinda Yeadon, executive board member with responsibility for adult social care said: “Hot, tasty, nourishing food is a vitally important part of achieving and maintaining a healthy and happy old age. “The new meals at home service is part of our commitment to improving standards of care for people in Leeds, and I'm delighted that our customers can now get a hot meal delivered to them seven days a week if that’s what they want. Families and carers will also benefit... Secondary school to remain on City of Leeds site
Secondary school to remain on City of Leeds site
Secondary school education will remain in Hyde Park after Leeds City Council agreed to retain a school on the site of City of Leeds. The council’s executive board followed recommendations by Education Leeds to maintain an 11-16 school at City of Leeds and establish new governance arrangements by September 2011. In April, Education Leeds was asked to work with the school and organisations connected to it to develop alternative proposals to closure. A range of options were considered - including alternatives which had been put forward by the school’s governors and Leeds Metropolitan University. A project team - consisting of the City of Leeds’ governing body and headteacher, representatives from a local high school and primary school, Leeds City College, Leeds College of Building, Education Leeds and Leeds City Council’s children’s services department - agreed any school on the site would need to see fast improvements made and would need to secure a broader confidence in the future stability, quality and effectiveness of the school. It also agreed that retaining a school on the site which had new governance arrangements would improve outcomes for young people, improve community cohesion, build on the strengths of current provision, be attractive to young people and their parents and be supported by key partners. Labour Councillor Judith Blake, executive board member for children's services, said: "The support from parents, governors, staff and pupils surrounding this school was not something that could be ignored. It has shown just how important a school is to a community and we can now look forward to building on the successes at City of Leeds for the benefit of local young people." Labour Councillor Jane Dowson, executive board member for learning at Leeds City Council, said: “I’m pleased that the recommendations... Council pledges long-term support to city’s neighbourhood networks
Council pledges long-term support to city’s neighbourhood networks Council chiefs have agreed to pledge £1.7million per year to the city’s neighbourhood networks. With further funding from NHS Leeds, this will amount to nearly £2 million to be shared each year between the voluntary organisations set up across Leeds to help older people live independently at home. A report to the council’s executive board today explained that the funding will be awarded for the first time in the form of five-year contracts, a move away from an annual grant-bidding process, which attracted controversy earlier in the year. This means that 27 neighbourhood network schemes will receive a new, five-year contract, starting on 1 October this year. Five organisations will get one-year contracts and the council will work closely with them to help them improve to a standard so that they too can be moved to five-year contracts as soon as possible. A further seven neighbourhood networks were not successful in being recommended to receive contracts. The council will now open talks with five of these in east Leeds, to see if a partnership arrangement can be set up with the successful contractor, Irish Health and Homes. Labour Councillor Lucinda Yeadon, executive board member for adult social care said: “Neighbourhood networks do a tremendous job and their volunteers currently support around 25,000 older people in the city. “The council want to support the organisations that provide these services by formalising our arrangements with them and awarding them with long-term contracts, which is why we invited all existing neighbourhood network schemes, as well as new ones, to bid for five-year contracts. “It is regrettable that this process didn’t run as smoothly as we hoped; we accept that mistakes were made and are sorry. We will learn from these and work hard to rebuild... Plans could see 20,000 ‘green’ homes for Leeds
 Plans could see 20,000 ‘green’ homes for Leeds 20,000 ‘green’ homes could be created – along with thousands of new jobs – by a massive regeneration project in the south of Leeds. Plans for being submitted to Leeds City Council’s executive board today (Wednesday 21st July) for a new ‘urban eco settlement’ in the Aire Valley Leeds area, which would see 12,000 new homes and 8,000 retrofitted with low carbon and fuel poverty measures. The proposals form part of a report into the future for the regeneration scheme, which includes plans to develop ‘stepping stones’ linking the city centre to the Aire Valley Leeds area and boosting development along the East Leeds Link Road. Low carbon homes are already being developed in the area, with 600 properties on the Yarm Street and Saxton Gardens sites – provided by Miller Homes and Urban Splash respectively – which have already attracted £23million of support through the Kickstart and Low Carbon Infrastructure funds. This money will help provide a locally-generated combined heat and power system for Yarm Street. And in May this year, the executive board approved a group repair scheme for the Cross Green area, which could now include fitting solar panels and air source heating to homes. Aire Valley Leeds is projected to create up to 40,000 jobs, around 400 hectares of development land, and a million square metres of new employment floorspace – all connected to the road network by the new £32million East Leeds Link Road. Labour Councillor Richard Lewis, Leeds City Council’s executive board member for development, said: "Aire Valley Leeds promises to lead the city's economic development over the next ten years with a million square metres of employment space creating up to 27,000 jobs. “But it’s not just about business – the plans for an... Council Leader welcomes summer start for Trinity Leeds development
 Council Leader welcomes summer start for Trinity Leeds development Leeds City Council's Leader, Cllr Keith Wakefield, today welcomed the news of a summer start for work on the Trinity Leeds city centre shopping and leisure development. He said: “This is excellent news for Leeds, both in terms of the jobs being created and the major enhancement that the scheme will bring to the city centre and its shopping and leisure offer.” He added: “With continuing economic uncertainty affecting regional centres across the country, resumption of work on the Trinity Leeds development comes as a timely vote of confidence in our city. “The scheme will bring welcome opportunities for business and for local people to gain skills and employment."...
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