Labour's Legacy - Poverty, Crime and Division

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 31st May 2004

After 25 years of running the Council Leeds Labour have left a legacy of poverty, crime and division - the two-speed City.

Many promises have been made to end the division, but Government figures show that 7 of the City's 33 Wards are among the most deprived areas in the UK. That's 20% of the City, much of it within a short distance of the City Centre. Just as damning are figures showing that nearly 20% of the Children in Leeds Primary Schools are eligible for free school meals a key poverty indicator. That's 12,210 children. Amongst all the Metropolitan areas in England only Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool have more.

What do people think when they see millions wasted on grandiose City Centre projects like Fountains in Millennium Square and City Square that never work? About the millions wasted on Millennium Square? About millions wasted on poorly controlled projects like Landmark Leeds? Or thousands spent on glossy brochures identifying all the problems? Or subsiding Councillors meals?

The answer comes, appropriately, from the YEP through its 'Life in Leeds' and 'Target the Yobs' investigative stories which have highlighted the poverty and crime affecting the City's poorest communities. Not just the traditional inner city areas, but the islands of poverty surrounded by wealth where the two-speed city is at its starkest. Here, pockets of social housing have been neglected while house prices have spiralled out of control all around.

And what answer has the YEP found? That people feel let down and neglected by the local Council - hardly surprising when the failure to tackle poverty and crime have left the divided City we live in today.

Liberal Democrats on the Council have worked hard to highlight the problems faced in our 'two-speed' city. We've talked to residents - taking up their concerns, not just dropping in with a reporter and photographer in tow. We've highlighted key projects to push regeneration in deprived areas. Apart from tackling congestion Supertram would bring a real economic boost to Leeds, but the Government has stalled it. The East Leeds Link Road - crucial to the creation of up to 30,000 jobs in the Aire Valley - has also been stalled.

On all of these issues Leeds should be pushing its case as a united City, bringing together political parties, business and local communities. This should be top of it's priorities, not spending yet more public money on City Centre schemes.

The private sector has proved it can lead the regeneration of the City Centre - the Council should focus on the rest of Leeds. Liberal Democrats are determined it should do so in future.