What have I been up to recently? (May-June 2023)

With my partner, Ashe, at Beeston Festival. We are posing with the @greenfuturesleeds frame.

It's been a long month! It's also been quite a while since I've written something here (half a year!) and a lot's been going on, both personally and in the world of activism. So - where to begin about what's been happening recently?

Keeping our streets tidy!

With Cllr Ed Carlisle litter picking in South Leeds

Since I've moved to Leeds, I've gotten involved with a local group: Litter Free Leeds. They are a grassroots group here in Leeds whose aim is to "bring communities, groups and individuals together to be good role models of what can be achieved when we all work together to keep our roads, pavements, parks and green spaces clean and litter free."

Litter picking with Leeds Green Party in Beeston Hill

Over the last few months, I've been getting more involved with community litter picking. Whether it's taking an hour out of my weekend to clear up areas around me, or as part of a group pick with the local Green Party, I've been doing my part to help #KeepLeedsTidy! No, it's not the most 'sexy' types of community activism, but it's certainly a type that matters.

Volunteering at festivals and galas!

At Beeston Festival with the Leeds Green Party

Now that we're in the summer-y months of the year, it's gala and festival season! Specifically, I had the pleasure of volunteering for Hunslet Gala and Beeston Festival in June. These were really fun days for all involved, and the organisers deserve a lot of praise! They did a great job organising and running what were fabulous days.

With our Green stall, we held some community competitions: keepy-uppys, paper aeroplanes, jokes, and paper towers - all using recycled materials from the local elections campaign! These were really fun to run, and it was great seeing both adults and kids getting involved (and throwing paper aeroplanes enormous distances!)

On top of attending, I also visited various stalls and got to know some of the groups in our community more. In particular, I was thrilled to see so many climate action groups - even a youth group - along with groups such as ACORN, the housing union. It's great to see lots of climate awareness in Leeds, but also groups pushing the council to do better with housing; ACORN Leeds' proposal is to double the council tax on second houses, raising £3mil to help families "get the housing they need".

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Calling out environmentally unfriendly proposals!

More recently, I wrote an article for South Leeds Life explaining my concerns over plastic grass pitches at the proposed Holbeck Sports Hub. You can read the article using the tagged link, but to summarise: the proposal includes three full-sized 3G pitches made out of plastic grass.

Plastic grass is super unfriendly to the environment; whilst I can totally understand the reasons for using artificial turf (it gets lots of mileage for its use & overcomes issues of waterlogging and cancelled games in the winter), there are still issues that remain unaddressed: overheating in hot weather (when 40 degree heat summers are the norm for the future, this grass will get extremely hot!), and there are also concerns related to forms of pollution owed to micro plastics.

At the moment, I will continue to work within my local community on this to ensure residents' voices are heard. There are many fellow residents of mine who have similar concerns! I think the idea of a community hub such as this, with a cafe and games area, will be a fabulous contribution for Holbeck residents; we need to ensure it is sustainable for the environment though.