Putting the heart back into ‘student’ suburb

IT’S a problem shared by many cities with a large student population: neighbourhoods once dominated by families and with amenities that cater to all now find that the balance has tipped towards houses bought up and split into multiple student occupancy and the explosion in businesses such as bars, takeaways and off-licences that fight for the undergraduate shilling. Some students moved up from Hyde Park to Headingley because they liked the idea of living among families in a locale that still had a somewhat villagey feel; others followed by the thousand, and long-term residents no longer felt that the suburb was their own.

On some nights of the week, it’s difficult for other passers-by to find room on the pavement of Headingley Lane in Leeds 6, such is the traffic of fancy-dressed student revellers wandering between pubs and bars. Where once there were shops that boasted a wide array of traditional services without having to resort to a bus or expensive parking in the city centre, what Headingley offers now is a great deal for those who don’t want or don’t know how to cook. The same has happened in parts of Sheffield and Hull.

The other problems a large influx of students has brought include late-night noise, litter, broken glass, drunks urinating on the walls beside residents’ back gates and vomit on the pavements. The character of the city’s first suburb development, established 150 years ago, with its elegant villas and terraces has been so changed that many families have given up and gone elsewhere – to West Park, Weetwood or further afield. But, despite the 60:40 ratio of students to non-students these days, some stalwarts have clung on.

It was the prospect of possibly losing a building that had, since it opened in 1882, been at the heart of Headingley life, that provided new cohesion for a non-student community in Headingley that had been fractured and reduced by the changes. Headingley Primary School in Bennett Road was due to close a few years ago because there were too few young families to support it and it would amalgamate with St Michael’s up the road. People who had gone to the school themselves or had taken their children there felt they needed to act before Leeds City Council sold the property and it was replaced by more student accommodation or a pub.

Lecturer Lesley Jeffries had moved to Headingley in 1980 and she met Jane Williams in the playground a few years later, when Jane and her family moved in from London. Both had young children and their families loved the small, friendly Headingley Primary.

“There was a great sense of community emanating from the school, as well as fantastic teaching going on there,” says Lesley. “All of this area was occupied by families, and the balance then was 60 per cent families to 40 per cent students.” Jane, a mental health commissioner, and her family lived on Bennett Road close to the school, but in 2001 moved away from the central hub of Headingley, driven out by what planners call loss of amenity.

“With the development of The Box and The Arc (large bars nearby) the street had become a promenade at night for drunken students. Students don’t mean any harm, but in drink their behaviour deteriorates and they can become hugely disruptive. The kids were regularly woken at night and you’d often walk out the back gate into a pool of vomit. This kind of thing erodes people’s confidence that they can enjoy life in peace.”

Lesley says ordinary families and some of the elderly people in the neighbourhood felt under siege. “The quality of life here really took a nosedive. When we told students how we felt, they’d say ‘...so why do you come and live here?’ Well, actually, we were here first. We don’t hate students at all, but there is a question of balance.”

A group of residents had some success in campaigning to keep shops as shops, but other fights were lost. In 2003 a group got together to plan and run Headingley’s monthly 20-stall farmers’ market, held in the council-owned Rose Garden on North Lane. “The atmosphere was fantastic,” says Jane. “We saw people we hadn’t seen in years, and had a ‘light bulb moment’.” There seemed to be enough people who wanted something done to reclaim Headingley’s old community spirit for the leading lights to feel optimistic, and in 2005 Headingley Development Trust was founded, after the primary school was earmarked for closure. It took five years of delicate negotiations with Leeds City Council for HDT to acquire the building on a 125 -year lease to convert it into a community arts and enterprise centre called HEART.

HDT invited local people to buy £5 stakes in the trust, which would be empowered to raise shares. The trust was mobbed with offers, and now has 915 members, making it the biggest development trust nationally. Local councillors were supportive but could see the funding problem ahead for a ward that has the highest transient population in the city, but is not an area designated as deprived. The HEART project would not qualify for various pots of money that might help towards the £1.3m cost of refurbishment for use by community groups large and small and affordable office space for embryonic businesses. What Headingley has, though, is “social capital” – articulate residents ready and willing to put time and effort into filling in forms, brainstorming, finding out how to tackle apparently insurmountable problems, and generally persisting in making things happen.

Ninety locals turned up at the first AGM of HDT, and a share issue was announced with a price of at least £100. “A lot of the money has come from people in the area, including the elderly, for whom £100 is a lot. But they say what we’ve done is marvellous and they want to be part of it,” says Lesley.

Raising the money was a slog, but with hindsight she also says “it was a blast, and a real team effort”. The total was raised from the Venture Capital Fund, community shares and £500,000 from Leeds City Council with the proviso that HEART provides 137 hours of low-cost community activity a week and houses the council’s learning disability outreach team. After nearly a year of work on the building HEART opened with great fanfare and a huge community celebration last month. Carefully renovated to preserve many original features, it has been enlarged, given more light and tastefully decorated.

Bookings, from arts clubs to dance and yoga classes and special-interest talks are filling up the diary. An independently-run South-East Asian cafe opened on the premises last week.

A roster of 60 volunteers – many of them retirees – runs the reception desk. On my visit a chatty local group from the University of the Third Age were in discussing art history and there was a busy weekend of music events ahead in the old school hall. The retired head teacher was at the opening do, naturally, and 1,000 locals passed through the doors on the first day to see what was on offer and/or what they’d bought into.

“It’s all been hard work, and some weeks I was doing about 20 hours of work to do with this project on top of a full-time job”, says Jane. “But it never occurred to any of us to give up. We always had a strong collective vision, all in it for the same reason”. Alongside the HEART project, a separate team has fundraised £100,000 to set up a co-operative takeover of the Natural Food Store on North Lane, saving it from some other fate.

It’s all been worth it, says Lesley. “We feel we’ve grabbed back the heart of Headingley for our community.It’s given everyone confidence, and we’re now thinking about what else we can do”.

The business of saving the Headingley Primary School has been the saving of that community.

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