Review of the Year 2010

REVIEW OF THE YEAR

2010 Best wishes to all of our loyal customers and all of our new customers in 2011

REVIEW ofthe YEAR 2010

Testing times for many January ■ SIX people were stabbed when a New Year party at the Mansion nightclub in Beast Market, Huddersfield erupted into a brawl. Two people were kept overnight in hospital and a man was arrested over the incident the next day.

■ SEVEN year old Ben Pogson was looking forward to the start of a new term at Clough Junior and Infant School, Linthwaite – just six weeks after open heart surgery. Parents Neil and Sam said their son’s life had been saved by an expert surgery team at Leeds General Infirmary.

■ THE ‘big freeze’ hit gritting stocks and Kirklees Highways said it was down to just two days’ supply. The government denied ‘rationing’ charges. Weather forecasters were predicting snow and below-zero temperatures until the end of January.

■ FREAK black ice caused hundreds of minor accidents on Huddersfield roads, with many pedestrians reduced to crawling across highways on their hands and knees. An experienced traffic officer described the chaos as the worst in living memory.

■ THOUSANDS of council workers were asked if they wanted to take redundancy.

The public spending squeeze meant that Kirklees was looking to cut its budget by 20%. Council leader Mehboob Khan said it was necessary to cut costs ‘before we reach the cliff face’.

■ GIANTS star Paul ‘Fitz’ Whatuira revealed how close he came to suicide following an unprovoked attack on two men. He said his breakdown was due to abuse he suffered as a child.

■ POTHOLE ‘hit squads’ were ordered out by the council after the severe frosts left Kirklees roads in their worst state of disrepair for many years. The council announced it had spent £2.8m, £1m more than allocated, on gritting and road clearance.

■ KIRKLEES announced it was going to spend £950,000 on a Manchester Road bus lane to cut bus travel times by two minutes. The decision was widely derided in the light of 1,500 local authority redundancies on the cards.

■ JANUARY: Seven-year-old Ben Pogson of Linthwaite (top), who had undergone successful heart surgery, with dad Neil and mum Samantha; people unable to stand on black ice on Causeway Side, Linthwaite resorting to crawling across the road on all fours – picture by Robert Cartwright – and potholes on Smithy Lane, between Somerset Road and Wakefield Road, Longley (right), caused or made worse by the bad weather.

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REVIEW ofthe YEAR 2010

A community’s sorrow February

■ FEBRUARY: Gurmail Singh, 63, (left) who was beaten to death during a robbery at his store in Cowcliffe. controversial work on Lindley Moor off Weatherhill Road, the proposed development of which as a data centre was strongly opposed by Olympic bronze medalist Derek Ibbotson, pictured (right at a reception to celebrate 40 years since he ran a record mile); and An architect’s impression of the proposed Tesco store at Southgate, Huddersfield (top);

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■ AMONG local authority jobs to be axed would be those of several department directors, all of whose salaries were more than £100,000 per annum, Kirklees announced.

■ PRINCE Harry led tributes to two British soldiers killed in Afghanistan, one of them Lance Cpl Graham Shaw of Golcar. He and Cpl Liam Riley were killed by a roadside bomb in Helmand Province.

■ THE Beast Market was back in the headlines five weeks after six people were stabbed in a fracas there: police shut down lap-dancing club La Salsa after claims that the girl dancers were offering sex for cash.

■ AFTER three years, a man was finally arrested over the hit-and-run death of Adam O’Toole at a crossing in new Hey Road, Salendine Nook. Brett Kingsley of Oldham was accused of perverting the course of justice and a false insurance claim – but not of manslaughter.

■ SUPERMARKET giant Tesco tabled plans for a controversial new store in Huddersfield, sweetening the deal with intimations that it would create 300 new jobs.

The proposed site was that occupied by the Sports Centre and the Lonsbrough and Ibbotson flats in Southgate.

■ OLYMPIC bronze medallist Derek Ibbotson joined the fight to save Lindley Moor from developers who wanted to build a ‘data campus’. Derek was part of the team that successfully defeated housing plans for the site 10 years earlier.

■ WORK was started to clear the site for the £175m Waterfront development centrepiece in Chapel Hill, the new Kirklees College complex. Even though councillors disliked the design, calling it an ‘atrocity’, they voted for it so as not to lose £85m from the Learning and Skills Council.

■ COWCLIFFE shopkeeper Gurmail Singh was killed trying to defend his shop from armed raiders, who beat him before stealing a small amount of cash, cigarettes and sweets. The arrests of six men swiftly followed.

REVIEW ofthe YEAR 2010

NEW SCHOOL PLAN March

■ A MOTHER had her cheek bitten off trying to defend her baby from an attacking bull terrier.

Waheed Akhtar, 26, of Thornton Lodge went into emergency plastic surgery and the dog was found and put down.

■ SEBASTIAN Mercante, husband of Claire, flew into the UK and knifed to death his mother-in-law Carol Berry, 66, at Bradley and wounded Claire’s brother Andrew Fields who was trying to defend her. Mercante then leapt to his death from the top of a multi-storey car park in Manchester.

■ MORE than 80 suspected drug dealers were taken off the streets in a series of dawn raids by Huddersfield police, led by Det Chief Insp Phil Benson. The raids also netted about £200,000 in cash and stolen goods.

■ A £20M plan to build a new high school alongside All Saints Catholic College at Bradley was announced. It would mean the closure of Fartown High School.

■ PLANS for a new pub and hotel on Castle Hill were thrown out, despite impassioned pleas from many of the 100 or so supporters of the development at the Kirklees planning meeting.

■ A PILOT climbed unhurt from the wreckage of his plane after it crashed at Crosland Hill Airfield.

The plane, a Diamond 42 worth £350,000, overshot the runway and hit a mud bank.

■ FORMER Town football star Delroy Facey was arrested over the stabbing of a man in King Street, Huddersfield. He was later cleared of the offence.

■ MARCH: Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman joins parents at the first of the consultation meetings for a new high school held at Christ Church Woodhouse school, Deighton (top): Det Insp Phil Benson, who headed a raid on drug dealers; and (below) a two-seater plane overran the runway at Crosland Hill airfield.

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REVIEW ofthe YEAR 2010

Cuts start to bite April

■ TONY Hood, former director of adults and communities for Kirklees, left Kirklees Council early in 2009. He was given a ‘discretionary’ payment of £32,611 and a lump sum of £30,000, making a total salary the 2008/9 period of £146, 715, it was revealed.

■ AS PM Gordon Brown committed himself to a May 6 general election, Huddersfield University politics lecturer Dr Pete Woodcock predicted voters would force a hung Parliament. “The Tories will fail to win an overall majority in the Commons,” he said.

■ A FIGHT to build a community centre and sports area at Skelmanthorpe looked to be resolved after 12 years of wrangling.

Parkgate Sports and Community Trust was rejoicing over Kirklees’ victory in negotiations with local businessman Brian Dunford over land use.

■ IT was revealed that council officials, not councillors, made crucial decisions over the black granite water feature at the John William Street end of St George’s Square. Assistant director of finance, risk and performance Martin Dearnley said that there were a number of opportunities to object to the feature, including two sets of planning applications, but no-one did.

■ SALENDINE Nook High School was having to pay £3,000 a day for a party of its pupils stranded at Disneyland, Florida by airlines grounded by the eruption of an Icelandic volcano.

■ GIANTS star Eorl Crabtree, 27, was one of seven people given honorary fellowships by Huddersfield University. The award coincided with his testimony year: he’d been with the Giants for 10 years.

■ KIRKLEES College announced it was cutting 20 senior posts in teaching and administration in a bid to save 10% of its costs, £800,000, in the next academic year. Adult education would be particularly badly hit.

■ APRIL: The stained water feature in St. George's Square (top) cured

by Charlie Cartwright; Huddersfield Giants Eorl Crabtree (inset), given an honorary fellowship by Huddersfield University; Dr Pete Woodcock of Huddersfield University (left), who predicted a hung Parliament after the May 6 general election; and the troublesome Iceland volcano Eyjafjallajokull (right), ash from which kept a party of Huddersfield High School pupils from returning home – photograph by Duke Gledhill.

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REVIEW ofthe YEAR 2010

ROBBERY The end June

■ HUNDREDS of protesters, mostly on motorbikes, brought M62 traffic to a snail’s pace in a demonstration against the price of petrol, which had hit a new high at £119.7p a litre.

“We chose a Saturday because we didn’t want to disrupt people going to work,” said co-organiser David Whitehouse.

■ THREE masked thieves escaped with bags of cash from the HSBC branch in Almondbury. The getaway car was later found burning near Almondbury cemetery. HSBC later offered a £50,000 reward for information on the crime.

■ TEACHERS were infuriated

by Kirklees Council’s insistence they treat as holiday the time away from school stranded in faraway destinations by the Icelandic ash cloud. They were being asked to choose between docked pay and working extra time as compensation. Three unions declared this unnecessary and punitive. “It wasn’t the teachers’ fault,” said one spokesman.

■ COLNE Valley voters chose Jason McCartney as their MP, while Huddersfield returned their old favourite Barry Sheerman to the Commons. Tory Simon Reevell took Dewsbury from Labour’s Shahid Malik but Labour’s Mike Wood held Batley and Spen. Craig Whittaker took Calder Valley for the Tories.

■ ANXIOUS to avoid a repeat of the soccer mayhem dubbed the ‘battle of Waterloo’ following the Town-Milwall match of April 26, police and Town officials pleaded with fans to get behind their team and steer clear of trouble spots. Town were beaten 2-0.

■ RICHARD Brook of Meltham, a voluntary first aid worker, was given an Asbo for posing as a paramedic. He dressed in fluorescent yellow and used a blue flashing light in his car to race to an emergency allegedly involving his stepfather.

■ A HUGE blaze laced with explosions devastated Grosvenor Chemicals works at Linthwaite, contaminating the Rover Colne. At the other side of the world a day later, Giants coach Nathan Brown’s home burned down in Sydney.

■ MAY: The Almondbury branch of the HSBC bank which was taped off by police after an incident there; and Fuel protest, M62 westbound, Hartshead to Birch.The protesters congregated at Hartshead Moor services. The protest seen from Round Ings Road, Outlane.

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■ HONLEY woman Paveen Yaqub, 39, an aid worker, was captured

by Israeli commandos when they stormed the ship the Mavi Marmara on its way to Gaza with emergency supplies for Palestinians beleaguered by an Israeli blockade in the Gaza Strip. She was freed three days later.

■ POLICE vowed to take court action over disgruntled fans who returned home from disappointing Town and World Cup matches to take it out violently on family members. They pledged to get swiftly to scenes of domestic upset and use head-mounted mini-cameras to capture on the spot evidence.

■ MARSDEN poet Simon Armitage got a CBE for outstanding services to literature.

Other people with Huddersfield connections also awarded included Marcia Hutchinson, John McFadzean, Ted Duggan, Bob Murray, John Carr, Peter Murray and Rob Vincent.

■ THIEVES snatched a 9ft boa constrictor from the Ponderosa rare breeds centre in Heckmondwike. The snake was found unharmed a week later in a house in Dewsbury Moor.

■ THE Barton Stroke Rehabilitation Unit at St Luke’s Hospital, Crosland Moor was to be included in the general closure of the hospital, health chiefs announced. It would be replaced by a home service.

■ TESCO confirmed it was still looking for a supermarket site in Holmfirth, despite strong opposition that succeeded crushing an earlier plan to build on the Midlothian Garage site on New Mill Road.

Tesco also dismissed as ‘Chinese whispers’ a suggestion that they were looking to build a supermarket in Honley.

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REVIEW ofthe YEAR 2010

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■ JULY: Fire at Hinchliffe's Farm Shop, Netherton Moor Road, Netherton (top) – picture by James Quigley; and the aftermath of a fire at Jake Mangel Wurzel's house at Peat Ponds, Salendine Nook (above)

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■ CEMETERIES in South Kirklees were almost full, Kirklees Council reported, and a plan to create a new one at Fenay Bridge was scrapped because of the danger of flooding. The alternative was one off Hey Lane, between Berry Brow and Farnley Tyas.

■ A PLAN for a £20m, 1,200-pupil school to replace Fartown High School was ditched after Education Secretary Michael Gove brought a halt to a national programme of school rebuilding, saving £400m.

■ GRANGE Moor residents were out in force to prevent the building of two 155ft wind turbines on the edge of their village. Its proposers, Mitie Asset Management, said the turbines would save 469 tonnes of CO².

■ FLAMES tore through Hinchliffe’s Farm Shop, wrecking the restaurant and tea shop, offices, butchery and greenhouse. About 200 chickens died in the blaze but other livestock was rescued.

General manager Simon Hirst said: “We’ll come back bigger and stronger.”

■ FOUR Local buildings were on English Heritage’s ‘at risk’ list. They were Milnsbridge House on Dowker Street, Milnsbridge, Westwood Mills at Linthwaite, Hopton Congregational Church, Mirfield and 18-20 St George’s Square.

■ HOWARD Roberts of Kirklees National Union of Teachers said that 7,000 working days lost by teachers suffering from stress were ‘the tip of the iceberg’. He said many more were ashamed to put stress – caused often by disruptive pupils and bad school management – on their sick notes.

■ NEW safety measures for Meltham Road were called for after yet another smash.

In this one, a teenager was critically injured. Later, road markings and speed-operated ‘go slow’ signs were added.

■ ECCENTRIC Jake Mangel Wurzel’s home at Peat Ponds, Salendine Nook, went up in flames. Jake and his dog escaped uninjured, but Jake later said: “I have lost everything that I owned.”

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REVIEW ofthe YEAR 2010

Stacey’s lottery joy August

■ A COUNCIL heating bill blunder was likely to cost Kirklees £750,000 in lost revenue. Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing, which manages council-owned property, had not sent bills out for a year. Fitting meters, one solution, would cost another £800,000.

■ TWO people – a six-year-old boy and his grandmother – were saved from drowning in a Lindley dam. Karina Goodman and her grandson Cole Foster publicly thanked their rescuer, teacher Caroline Howarth.

■ A HOLMFIRTH 18-year-old nursery nurse celebrated a £1.1m with a champagne celebration. Stacey Bywater bought the ticket at a Huddersfield town centre shop.

■ THE names of two more pubs were added to the growing list of recent closures in Huddersfield – the Globe on Acre Street, Lindley and the Grey Horse, Halifax Road, Birchencliffe. Others to close had included the Junction at Crosland Moor, the Red Lion and Town Hall in Lockwood, and the Woodman and Little John in Bradley.

■ POLICE said that cannabis farms were being detected and closed down in Kirklees at a rate of one every two days. The farms were underpinning other crimes, such as money laundering, violence, kidnapping and intimidation, they said.

■ TWO Wakefield firearms officers were snapped turning a stake-out into a take-out in King Street, Huddersfield. They had parked in a pedestrian area to get coffee from Caffé Nero.

■ KIRKLEES Council was berated for letting a guide for North Kirklees bike shops slip past proof-readers with hundreds of blatant errors.

Linthwaite was Lintwhite, Kirklees was Kirtles and Cleckheaton was Czechisation.

■ AND FINALLY ... A Chinese student was held hostage in a Newsome house for five days while his captors demanded $2m from his millionaire parents. Lishiu Wu was released when police battered down the door of the Terrace Street house.

■ AUGUST: Another pub closes – the Globe, Acre Street, Lindley (top);National Lottery jackpot winner, Stacey Bywater (left)of Holmfirth; and (above) a cannabis farm found at Devonshire Street, Lockwood.

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REVIEW ofthe YEAR 2010

DRESSED TO THRILL

September

■ SEPTEMBER: Catherine Tate and Huddersfield Giants players Eorl Crabtree, Leroy Cudjoe, Michael Lawrence, Luke Robinson and Andy Raleigh (top); the Business School, Huddersfield University with Dean of the Business School, Prof Chris Cowton (above); Shelley College student Dakota Kilner who was denied taking her GCSE Drama exam because of an ear stud she was wearing. She is pictured with her mother, Rachel Firth (right); hero Mickey Hellawell (left), aged three, with his 14-year-old sister, after a fire at their Orchard Terrace, Primrose Hill, home.

■ COMEDIAN Catherine Tate joined forces with Huddersfield Giants players to produce a 2011 calendar, proceeds of which will go to the Laura Crane Trust charity for your people with cancer. Catherine Tate is one of the Trust’s patrons.

■ KIRKLEES Council revealed the cost of repairing Huddersfield roads from damage in the 2009/10 winter had risen to £3.5m and was still rising. Determined not to be caught out again, the council had bought 25,000 tonnes of rock salt for the coming winter, 19,000 tonnes above the government recommendation.

■ HUDDERSFIELD University’s new £16.5m Business School on Firth Street opened ready for this year’s new intake of students.

Prof Christopher Canton, dean of the school, said the designers had wanted a mixture of modern and classical elements.

■ A BATCH of weevils was introduced into Huddersfield Broad Canal at Cooper Bridge to attack a North American water fern which was choking the waterway. They were also being used to clear the Calder and Hebble Navigation at Elland and Brighouse.

■ MICKEY Hellawell, aged three, woke his Primrose Hill family up when he spotted flames outside the house. He probably saved the their lives, a firefighter said. Vandals had set fire to a skip, which then ignited the garden fence and damaged the house porch.

■ THE AXE fell on the final 40 workers at training firm Enterprise Solutions Training Ltd. The firm was at the centre of a row with Kirklees College over the quality of training delivered by the company.

■ A PAY review revealed that 90 public sector workers in Kirklees and Calderdale earned more than £100,000 in 2009, more than the Prime Minister. Of the 96, 46 of them were GPs. ■ AND FINALLY ... Mum Rebecca Firth said she was standing up for her daughter, Dakota Kilner’s human rights by supporting her decision not to take a GCSE exam after Shelley High School staff had told the girl to remove an ear-ring before the exam.

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REVIEW ofthe YEAR 2010

That fighting spirit

October ■ BROTHERS Ron and John Greenwood, 67 and 60 respectively, were attacked by four machete- and knife-wielding robbers at their Newsome home. But the pensioners fought them off and they fled empty-handed, leaving John knocked out and gashed in the head.

■ HUGE numbers of parents were missing their children’s anti-diptheria, tetanus and polio immunisation appointments, Kirkees Community Healthcare Services said. Of 26,996 appointments, only 16,847 were kept.

■ BEAUMONT Street Studios closed owing £112,000. The studios were used to record artistes such as Embrace, Chumbawumba and Shed Seven.

■ THANKS to a public art scheme, stone sculptures on the theme of Denby Dale Pies were sitting proudly on a traffic island in the village. Hepworth artist Mike Disley, Kirklees Council arts agency IOCA and local schools all helped in the project.

■ A CABLE car link from Huddersfield Media Centre to the Galpharm Stadium could give the town ‘destination’ status, HD One said. They were backed by the Town First organisation.

■ EDDIE Jefferson, retiring from his role as a JP after 26 years, spoke out on his belief that the law had gone soft on criminals. Punishment had been relegated, deterrence was never mentioned and re-education had been replaced by rehabilitation.

■ MEMBERS of Colne Valley Male Voice Choir were wading through artificial snow at Halton Gill, Skipton for a Jamie Oliver-themed Sainsbury’s supermarket Christmas advert.

■ ANITA Faherty of Crosland Hill saw off 21 male competitors in a dry stone walling contest at Beamish, Durham. “She’s a national treasure,” said Slaithwaite master craftsman Paul Webley.

■ AND FINALLY ... Stone cleaner Charlie Cartwright took just four hours to renovate the lime-stained granite of the St George’s Square water feature after Kirklees had spent four months deliberating over how to solve the problem. Charlie asked the council to give his £300 fee to Kirkwood Hospice.

■ OCTOBER: Top: The Sculpture Project in Denby Dale, with sculptor Mike Disley and teachers John Cook, Elaine Ward and Jane Travis, Clr Jim Dodds, Jason Terry and pupils (from left) Megan Williams, Lucy Knowles, Laura Boothroyd, Adam Meachen; above, the St Peter’s Street entrance to Beaumont Street Studios; left, Eddie Jefferson, resigning after 26 years on the bench at Huddersfield Magistrates’ Court; right, John (left) and Ronald of Edale Avenue, Newsome, who fought off four intruders in their home who were armed with machetes and knives.

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REVIEW ofthe YEAR 2010

PRIDE DOWN UNDER

November

■ NOVEMBER: England's Eorl Crabtree, Shaun Lunt, Darrel Griffin, Luke Robinson, Leroy Cudjoe and Kevin Brown ready to fly out to the Antipodes (top); disgruntled Slaithwaite Philharmonic conductor Natalia Luis-Bassa (left); and firefighters at the scene of the destruction of Lascelles Hall Cricket Club (above).

■ AN arsonist destroyed Huddersfield’s oldest cricket club, taking with it treasured mementoes of 185 years’ history. Lascelles Hall Cricket Club burned down, but an earlier attack on Kirkheaton Cricket Club was thwarted by firefighters.

■ AN inquest revealed harrowing details of a blast at Andrew Jones Pies, Old Leeds Road on Good Friday, 2010.

Employee David Cole, 37, an amateur rugby player, was killed in the gas oven explosion.

■ A RECORD six Huddersfield Rugby League Club players were in action for England in the Four Nations tournament in Australia and New Zealand.

■ HUDDERSFIELD Town announced an ambitious plan for a multi-million pound sports complex at Syngenta on Leeds Road. The ‘Canalside’ development was described by Town chairman Dean Hoyle as the most significant in the club’s history since the move into the Stadium 16 years ago.

■ SEVEN Kirklees Council delegates visited a conference on social care in Manchester, racking up a bill for nearly £4,000, some of it for overnight hotel stays, even though the conference was just 29 miles from home.

■ THE conductor of one of the Slaithwaite Philharmonic Orchestra walked out hours before its opening performances of the new season. Natalia Luis-Bassa said: “There are members who disrespect me as a person, a conductor and a music-maker.

My health comes first.”

■ MANAGERS of Kirklees Children’s and Young People’s Services bullied their staff, Clr Terry Lyons of Meltham claimed. He told an inquiry into the dismissal of 17 workers as part of the spending cuts: “Staff have no confidence in their managers. Their behaviour is often bullying, negative, inconsistent and unsupportive.”

■ THE killers of Gurmail Singh were jailed for a total of 41 years. The Cowcliffe shopkeepers was beaten to death during a robbery in February.

■ AND FINALLY ...

Temperatures dropped to -7°C, ruining sports fixtures and bringing traffic to a standstill throughout Huddersfield.

Forecasts warned there was more to come.

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REVIEW

of the

YEAR 2010

ANGEL

DELIGHT

■ DECEMBER: ‘Floating angels’ from the Belgian company Theater Tol presented Corazon de Angeles in St George’s Square, much to the delight of thousands of spectators. Below right, the victim of dog attack, Sky-Leigh Barker, eight, of Rastrick, is to have a long wait for plastic surgery; and below left, Colne Valley MP Jason McCartney supports the bid to block a £9,000 student grant ceiling.

December

■ A CORONER publicly thanked former Honley High School student Miss Julie Gruen for her efforts to help injured Tube passengers caught up in the July 7, 2005 bombings. Miss Gruen grew up in Almondbury, just two miles from the Dalton home of bomber Jermaine Lindsay.

■ TEMPERATURES continued to drop at the beginning of the month, closing schools, libraries and museums and disrupting road and rail traffic. Petrol stations started to run low on fuel as prices hit an all-time high.

■ DESPITE the cold, thousands flocked to St George’s Square for a spectacular Festival of Light produced by the Belgian group, Theater Tol. ‘Angels’ scattered glitter, fake snow and streamers on the crowd, though the fake snow was replaced by real snow later.

■ EMLEY Moor temperatures plummeted to -17°C, by far the lowest temperature ever recorded in Huddersfield and much colder than Moscow, Helsinki and Reykjavik.

■ RASTRICK schoolgirl Sky Leigh Barker, eight, was told by surgeons she must bear the horrific scars of a dog attack on her face and head for another 10 years. Doctors said cosmetic surgery would be ineffective until she was an adult.

■ COLNE Valley Jason McCartney voted against the Government on its proposal to raise the university tuition fee ceiling to £9,000. “This was the most difficult decision I have had to make as an MP,” he said. Mr McCartney’s advancement through Tory ranks is now unlikely.

■ MEMBERS of Kirklees Planning Committee had been making decision for three years without the proper training, it was revealed. In all, 96 planning meetings since September, 2007 had been attended by at least one ‘untrained’ councillor.

■ AND FINALLY ... Council leader Mehboob Khan said Kirklees would have to find savings of £80m over the next four years. The current programme of job losses and service cuts was due to save £30m, leaving another £50m of cuts still to come.