Crossgate Community Partnership: Minutes

Minutes of the meeting, 6th November 2025

1. Attendance

Cllr Roger Cornwell (in the Chair), Lesley Aers, Margaret Jefferson, Pat Mussett, Simon Priestley, David Ramsden, Jean Rogers, Alan Shearer, Ann Stokes, David Toll, Joe Witherspoon,
Cllr Carole Lattin
Dinah Patt.

2. Apologies for absence

were received from Joan Adams, Max Arnold, Gillian Banks, Robert Banks, Morag Crichton, Ann Evans, Chris Hugill, Malcolm Reed, Judi Webb, Sarah Wilkinson,
Cllr Liz Brown
Cllr Toria Ashfield, Cllr Grenville Holland.

3. Minutes

The minutes of the October meeting were approved as a correct record.

4. Hild / Bede College update

Roger Cornwell welcomed back Dinah Patt, who has now returned from visiting her family in the US. She reported that the academic year is now in full swing, and that students were showing interest in volunteering. There would be a meeting in the following week to capitalise on this, and Dinah invited anyone who knew of organisations seeking volunteers to contact her. Cllr Carole Lattin would e-mail her with details of opportunities to volunteer with planting and gardening; in the neighbourhood. Some bulbs were still available for planting within the college, and there would shortly be a tree incentive scheme.
The College Librarian was hard at work setting up shelves.
The College was nearing its 50th Anniversary (dating from the amalgamation of the earlier colleges of St Hild and St Bede): Various activities were being planned, and would be publicised shortly, but Dinah gave warning of a charity auction, for which she would be inviting local businesses / creatives etc. to donate prizes.

5. Traffic lights at the A690/Margery Lane junction

Since this was discussed at our last meeting, Roger had submitted three short videos to the police, each showing someone jumping the lights; in each case he had received an acknowledgement saying that action would be taken, and that initial action would be education. Joe Witherspoon had also spent half an hour observing the junction, and was shocked at how many people jumped the lights in that tome: it was possible that some of them had misinterpreted the light at the foot of the Peth; he also felt that the pedestrian phase on the crossing was not long enough.
The Parish Council had suggested a Day of Action, when volunteer would be invited to observe and report traffic jumping the lights: the hope was that a flood of reports would encourage the police to install cameras. Roger would update the mailing list with any plans. Dinah felt that student colunteers might be interested in this, especially following the recent death of a student at Neville's Cross lights
In other traffic related matters, Margaret Jefferson reported that the one-way signage for Allergate had now been corrected, and the arrows now point the right way.

6. Application to convert Hopper House to a PBSA

Roger introduced this planning application. There were three questions for the meeting to determine:

Do we want this empty property to become a PBSA?
Do we approved the proposed external changes?
Do we accept the surrender of existing highway to facilitate parking and the construction of a lobby for the new development?

Simon Priestley noted that the application once again claims to be meeting a need for student housing which does not in fact exist (Dinah confirmed that there is no shortage of student housing): also that it is pitched at the most expensive end of the market. Yet the plan includes no parking for student residents (designated parking is for the associated office space). He was surprised at the proportion of student residents given for the area. Roger pointed out that rules on the percentage of student households in an area apply to HMOs but not to PBSAs (the meeting considered whether this was something that might be considered by the new County Plan): the University must be consulted about need, but might argue that given the amount of sub-standard accommodation, there was room for competition on quality (in which case going upmarket would work in favour of approval).
After further discussion, the meeting agreed:

that the Crossgate Community Partnership was opposed to the development because it would exacerbate the over-concentration of students living in the area, and also made no provision for the resultant increased demand for parking.
The meeting noticed that DCC's Conservation Officer felt that the changes to the external appearance of Hopper House would be an improvement. We did not disagree, but felt that this was a very low bar to meet.
We had previously complained of parking obstructing passage along the highway past Hopper House; this objection stands.

Simon will submit an objection on these terms.

7. Report from County Councillor

Roger had discussed traffic issues with Cllr Liz Brown: she had no other issues that she particularly wished to raise.

8. Reports from Parish Councillors

a) Carole had circulated a written report: there were no questions.

b) Roger reported on discussions in the Planning and Licensing Committee about applications relating to properties outside the CCP's area of interest: there was general concern about properties which don't have a proper escape route in case of fire.
He had represented the Parish at the Energy Conference at Redhills; the building itself uses ground source heating.
He and Simon had attended a meeting of DURF at which they had learned that 30% of complaints received about noise come from students. The new noise complaints procedure was now in operation (Margaret noted that noise control at the Angel was now much improved).

9. Dates of future meetings

The list of proposed dates for meetings in 2026 was:
Tuesdays: February 3rd, April 7th, June 2nd, August 4th, October 6th, December 1st.
Thursdays: January 8th, March 5th, May 7th, July 2nd, September 3rd, November 5th.
It was noted that the first Tuesday in April would be the day after Easter Monday; to minimise problems with holiday plans, it was agreed that our April meeting should be held on Thursday April 9th. With this modification, the schedule was approved.
Meanwhile, the next meeting would be on Tuesday 2nd December 2025.