Leeds today: hospital, St George, Feast, taxis, philanthropy and arts funding (again).

Morning! Mike here; it’s the start of a new week, and remember that it is still April and it will probably be chillier than you’re expecting.

A couple of weeks ago we mentioned the arts spending forecasts at LCC, thanks to the Leeds Citizen blog. It turns out that this isn’t such a done deal; Mr Citizen noticed that councillors are objecting to funds moving from West Yorkshire Grants into Leeds Inspired. Interesting; WYG supports all kinds of projects but none of the councils in the West Yorkshire region will be funding it from the end of last financial year, a decision taken over 12 months ago and we’ve been covering some of the impact here. Surely the £300k that was put into WYG will now be spent (via LI) on local projects that received funding from WYG? Not entirely sure what the complaint is about. Anyway! If you want to find out more the Leeds Citizen has discovered when the scrutiny board meeting will be; it’s open to the public, so pop along to the Civic Hall on Monday 23rd, 10am.

The LGI is seeing some massive changes coming; although the heart unit is still(!) under threat of closure it looks as if all maternal and neonatal care in Leeds will be centraliased at the LGI. The YEP report makes interesting reading.

It’s been a busy weekend for Mr Citizen; he also noticed that transparency in spending doesn’t mean what we think it means. £12.7m has been given to somebody in return for “construction”. It could be anybody – like Dodgy Bob’s Wild West Builders inc – although it could also be BAM. The question is why has this information been redacted? Could the money be going to not who we expect?

Contractors for Kirklees Council were painting white lines on roads recently. All well and good, until they paint over a pile of horse manure (YEP). Bless. Still, it’s not like it’s a bloke with a pot of paint and a wide brush.

BGL was involved in a couple of student projects last year; Elly mentioned the first last Thursday. The second is a look at Philanthropy in Leeds, and the main event is on 19th April in the Leeds Museum foyer between 10-4 and hopes to track the way Leeds has changed from past to present by looking at the nature of philanthropic efforts from the 19th century to the present day. The group are particularly keen to collect local views on the subject and would love those who have thoughts about this topic to pop down and share their opinion, as well as those who’d like to see what they’ve got so far.

Hackney cabs in Leeds could soon become scarce; cab drivers are threatening to go on strike over the LBA taxi rank controversy. Since the airport contracted out taxi services to a private firm in 2008 hackney cabs, like private cars, have been forced to pay a drop-off charge at the airport and have been lobbying for a taxi rank off the airport premises. Representatives have been asking for a meeting with LCC for a while and have given a deadline of Thursday before taking action of some kind.

Morley is going to show why it is the most patriotic town in England next weekend as St Georges Day prep gets underway. Morley has been celebrating the patron saint’s day in a big way for many years and this event is no exception:

The president of the Morley Chamber of Trade and Commerce, Keith Robinson, said: “We have got a stage with some really good entertainment, headliners are La Musica who are just back from a Far East tour, there is the Morley Music Ensemble, the South Steel Band, Gemma Hopkinson, Dylan Brierley, Jamie Leigh Fish and the Air Training Corps Band.”

Finally; do you like your Sunday lunch with a bit of heated debate? As part of the Transform festival at the WYP Slung Low and the WYP have put together a menu of tasty food and speakers from Johann Hari to Daisy Campbell to make people think next Sunday. That sounds like an interesting afternoon to me.

And that’s it for today. We have a new writer starting this week; Tom Goodhand, formerly of the (sadly missed) Leeds Guide, will be joining us for Thursdays! I look forwards to seeing his work for BGL in a big way.

As ever, if you have any news or views you’d like to publicise then please get in touch. We are nothing without our readers, so thank you.