Second chance for unwanted items at Leeds reuse shop

Photo 1: Councillor Mark Dobson and Ali Ward of Revive Leeds toast the shop's launch



Photo 2: The sun shone for the launch but there are plenty of umbrellas for sale if the weather takes a turn for the worse... pictured from left are Councillor Mark Dobson with Revive Leeds partners Diane Parrish (St Vincent de Paul and the Probation Service), Helen Collins (Slate) and Ali Ward (Emmaus).

Partners from Revive Leeds, the new reuse shop at the newly-refurbished East Leeds household waste centre, joined Cllr Mark Dobson today to celebrate its opening.

Revive Leeds is a low-cost shop selling good-quality unwanted furniture, electrical goods, clothes, books, bric-a-brac and other household items. People can leave their unwanted items to to be sold on to others looking to furnish their homes without paying high street prices.

It is situated at Leeds City Council’s refurbished East Leeds recycling site on Limewood Road, Seacroft, which is now the biggest, most modern household waste centre in Leeds.

The re-use shop is the first of its kind in Leeds and is run by Revive Leeds- a community interest company made up of three local charities; Emmaus, SLATE and St Vincent de Paul.

For further informatrion and quotes see this earlier press release:
New lease of life for East Leeds recycling centre

Information about East Leeds and all the other recycling and household waste centres across Leeds is available on the Recycle for Leeds pages on the council’s website at
www.leeds.gov.uk/recycleforleeds
and you can follow Revive Leeds on Twitter and Facebook.


For media enquiries please contact:
Donna Cox, Leeds City Council press office (0113) 224 3335
e-mail: donna.cox@leeds.gov.uk

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Little porkers are corkers at Temple Newsam

Caption: Saddleback piglet at Temple Newsam's Home Farm

Squeals of delight can be heard at Temple Newsam’s Home Farm as two new litters of piglets have arrived.

The two litters of Saddleback piglets were born at the end of July to mothers May and Mary. The mothers are sisters, and at 14 months old, this is their first litters. May had a total of seven piglets and Mary 11.

The Saddleback breed is easily recognised by a white band that goes right around the pig - it has a black head, white front legs & the middle & back legs are black.

As a final treat at the end of the school holidays, you can take the kids to see the piglets in their pens by the entrance to Home Farm. Look out too for some other new additions, as new chicks arrived over the bank holiday weekend.

Home Farm is also home to pigs, goats, chickens, ducks and rabbits and a number of other animals.

Maria Akers, Leeds City Council estate manager for Temple Newsam and Lotherton Hall said:

“It is a great time of year to go and visit Home Farm to see all the new additions to the farm, including the piglets and chicks, amongst others.

“The farm and the house offer an excellent day out for the whole family, and would be a great trip out for the last weekend of the school holidays.”

Home Farm is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm. There will be a Fantastic Farm Open Day on Sunday 11 September with extra displays and exhibitions.

For further details on Home Farm, visit www.leeds.gov.uk/templenewsamhouse or call 0113 264 5535.


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For media enquiries, please contact;
Cat Milburn, Leeds City Council press office (0113) 247 4450
Email: Catherine.milburn@leeds.gov.uk

Dutch swimmers begin Olympic preparations in Leeds

Caption: Ranomi Kromowidjojo (far right) who will be training in Leeds next week pictured together with (left to right)international teammates Marleen Veldhuis, Femke Heemskerk and Inge Dekker after their victory in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

A team of swimmers likely to be representing the Netherlands at the London 2012 Olympic Games including a reigning Olympic and world champion will be training in Leeds next week.

As part of the agreement signed by the city with the Royal Dutch Swimming Federation in 2009, a squad of swimmers will be in Leeds to familiarise themselves with the city and their training base at the Aquatics Centre at the John Charles Centre for Sport.

The squad coming to Leeds contains 13 swimmers including Ranomi Kromowidjojo who was part of the gold medal-winning Olympic Women’s 4x100 metre Freestyle Relay team in Beijing in 2008 as well as the team who claimed gold in the same discipline at the recent FINA World Aquatics Championships in Shanghai.

******************** Media opportunity ********************

All media are invited to the Aquatics Centre at the John Charles Centre for Sport on Wednesday 7 September at 9.30am to see the squad training. The coach will be available for interview. Please call the press office on 0113 247 4450 to arrange attendance.

******************** Media opportunity ********************

Kromowidjojo also enjoyed success in the individual events in Shanghai, winning a silver medal in the Women’s 50m Freestyle and a bronze in the Women’s 100m Freestyle events. Another notable member of the squad training in Leeds this week is Sharon van Rouwendaal, who took bronze in the Women’s 200m Backstroke in Shanghai where the Dutch team claimed six medals to finished ninth in the medal table, three places behind Team Great Britain.

Aside from daily training and gym sessions at the John Charles Centre for Sport, the squad will also have some free time to visit Leeds city centre before they leave on Saturday 10 September to head to London for a tour of the Olympic Park where they will be competing at the Games.

Their next visit to Leeds will be next summer, when they return in the weeks leading up to the London 2012 Olympic Games to complete their pre-Games training preparations.

Leeds City Council executive member for leisure Councillor Adam Ogilvie said:
“We are excited to welcome our guests from Holland to our great city and hope they have an enjoyable and beneficial time in Leeds this week.

“Even though they are only visiting for a few days we hope they get a flavour of the city and a warm Yorkshire welcome from everyone they meet.

“Following on from our fantastic recent announcement about also hosting the China team we look forward to seeing more world-class athletes coming to Leeds in the months ahead.”

As well as the Dutch swimmers, Leeds will also be hosting athletes from the USA, Serbia and Canada ahead of the 2012 London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, while earlier this month Leeds was also announced as the official European pre-Games training base for the China Olympic squad. Discussions are continuing with a number of other countries.

For more information on Leeds and its work towards the London 2012 Games, visit www.leedsgold.co.uk

Notes to editors:
Leeds Gold is the city’s official brand to support the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. It has been developed to be used by individuals and organisations in the city in connection with any projects, events or activities that contribute to, and capitalise on, all the opportunities that the hosting of the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games present. It will provide an ‘umbrella’ brand that will link projects and events together and make a clear association with, and help celebrate, the London 2012 Games. For further information please go to www.leedsgold.co.uk

The Yorkshire region’s activities around the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games are being co-ordinated by Yorkshire Gold which is supported by key stakeholders from across the region. For further information visit www.yorkshire-gold.com

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For media enquiries please contact:
Roger Boyde, Leisure media relations officer,
Tel 0113 247 5472 Email: roger.boyde@leeds.gov.uk

New lease of life for East Leeds recycling centre

Recycling is being given a new lease of life at the refurbished state-of-the-art East Leeds household waste centre, featuring a shop selling previously-used household items.

The innovative Revive Leeds store is a low-cost shop selling good-quality unwanted furniture, electrical goods and other household items.

MEDIA OPPORTUNITY
Thursday September 1, 10.30am Official opening of East Leeds household waste recycling centre and the Revive Leeds reuse shop. Cllr Mark Dobson, Leeds City Council’s executive member for environmental services will be available for interview, along with representatives from Revive Leeds, the community organisation running the shop.
East Leeds household waste site is situated on Limewood Road, Seacroft, LS14 1LU.

People can leave good quality unwanted furniture, electrical goods, clothes, books and bric-a-brac via Revive Leeds to be sold on to others looking to furnish their homes without paying high street prices.

Leeds City Council’s refurbished East Leeds recycling site is now the biggest, most modern household waste centre in Leeds, re-opening its doors a couple of weeks ago.

The re-use shop, which opened last week, is a key part of the redevelopment of the East Leeds centre on Limewood Road, Seacroft. It is the first of its kind in Leeds and is run by Revive Leeds- a community interest company made up of three local charities; Emmaus, SLATE and St Vincent de Paul.

Cllr Mark Dobson, executive member for environmental services, Leeds City Council, said:
“These new facilities at East Leeds are intended to make it as easy as possible for people to recycle and help us avoid sending waste to landfill. We are completely modernising our waste management operations in a number of ways in order to help us achieve our target of recycling more than half of the city’s waste by 2020.

“The Revive reuse shop is an excellent way of demonstrating our commitment to this. Recycling is not just about what you put in your green bin, it’s also about prolonging the life of unwanted but usable and useful goods. The new shop enables this by selling on good-quality household items, saving them from landfill and furthering their life.”

Ali Ward of Revive Leeds said:
“We’re getting a fantastic response from people interested in what the shop’s doing and we’re getting plenty of donations of unwanted items coming in already. What we need now is for people to come in, have a look round and buy something.

“Don’t forget that not only are we helping stop these good-quality goods going into landfill, the three charities involved are all local, which means all money raised stays locally to help people in this area.”

Among the improvements at East Leeds are more recycling containers and the ability to re-use a wider range of materials, clearer signage, improved traffic flow and easier ways to drop off waste. There will also be special compacting equipment to reduce the space waste takes up and therefore allowing larger loads to be taken away by containers.

It is also planned that in the future the site will also be able to offer small and medium-sized businesses the option to recycle even small quantities of their waste, as well as dispose of it at a reasonable cost.

Recycling rates for Leeds are showing consistent improvements this year, with figures for April, May and June topping 40%- an increase of more than 3% on the same period last year.

Information about East Leeds and all the other recycling and household waste centres across Leeds is available on the Recycle for Leeds pages on the council’s website at
www.leeds.gov.uk/recycleforleeds
and you can follow Revive Leeds on Twitter and Facebook.


For media enquiries please contact:
Donna Cox, Leeds City Council press office (0113) 224 3335
e-mail: donna.cox@leeds.gov.uk

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Tonnes of waste removed from Hyde Park

As part of an environment clean up drive in Hyde Park, 700 tonnes of student waste was removed from the area this summer.

In January 2011, the Hyde Park Board was launched to tackle environmental issues in Hyde Park, including student waste, litter and graffiti.

One of the many issues that affects the area is the ‘student changeover’ period, which has developed a reputation for accumulations of household waste from departing students causing a considerable eyesore across the Headingley and Hyde Park area.

A number of graffiti and littering hotspots have already been identified in Hyde Park and a number of clean-up operations have already taken place.

This year’s student changeover programme, organised by the Hyde Park board, deployed additional refuse and bulky waste collections which resulted in over 700 tonnes of waste being removed from the area.

The Hyde Park Board organised additional graffiti removal in Hyde Park through a joint operation in May where a number of agencies worked together to remove markings across the area. As well as removal of graffiti, the Police and partners from Safer Leeds have been looking at enforcement action that can be taken against those responsible.

Councillor Peter Gruen, Leeds City Council executive board member with responsibility for neighbourhoods and housing said:

“We have listened to the public and agree that more needs to be done to improve the quality of the environment in the Hyde Park area.

“As a partnership we have agreed to target our resources in order to tackle problems with litter and fly tipping and will take a zero tolerance approach to graffiti. We have already starting to show this with a number of clean-up operations already run throughout the area.

“But we need the help of the residents to make a real difference, by disposing of their waste properly and reporting problems when they see them.”

Amanda Jackson, Community and Housing Policy Officer at the University of Leeds said:
“The University is delighted to be a key partner in the Hyde Park Board to ensure that the area is a safe, clean and welcoming place for our students to live whilst studying in Leeds. Like many residents our students are concerned by the environmental problems which have been an issue in this highly populated area of the city for a number of years. We hope that through the partnership and initiatives that we will combat these issues and ensure that all residents, students and non-student, are proud to call Hyde Park their home.”

In addition to the actions already taken, planning for the autumn is also underway and the Environmental Action Team are looking at what additional resources can be put into this area to ensure the area is cleaned to the highest standard before students return.


Notes to editors:

Chaired by Cllr Peter Gruen, the Hyde Park Neighbourhood Improvement Board was set up to address some long standing challenges affecting the area. The Board includes representatives from the Council, Police, and local organisations including the universities and local residents.

Along with the work on removal of student waste, an audit of each street in Hyde Park which identified hotspots for litter, graffiti, waste in gardens and problem bin yards was undertaken. A neighbourhood survey was then carried out to assess public perception of environmental and community safety issues.