As reported here yesterday, Leeds City Council has handed Bramley Baths into community ownership and the Friends of Bramley Baths, chaired by former Leeds West MP John Battle, will be taking on the running of the historic Baths as a community enterprise on a 25 year lease.

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Senior councillors at Leeds City Council this afternoon have officially agreed that control of the historic Baths be handed over to the Friends of Bramley Baths community group, as part of the Council's asset transfer policy.

The much loved Baths, which opened in 1904, faced the threat of total closure last year, prompting a fierce campaign from Rachel, local councillors, local schools and Bramley residents. The campaign also garnered the support of the eminent Victorian Society and Olympian Duncan Goodhew.

You can read more about the history of the campaign to save Bramley Baths by clicking here.

The Friends of Bramley Baths came together following a public meeting that Rachel hosted in June 2011 which over 100 local residents attended to share their ideas for the future and hear what a potential community asset transfer would entail. Attendees at the meeting voted in favour of exploring the community asset transfer option and more than 20 local people volunteered to be part of a working group. This group of community volunteers, with the involvement of local charities BARCA Leeds and Bramley Elderly Action, became the Friends of Bramley Baths, chaired by former Leeds West MP John Battle.

On hearing the news today Rachel expressed delight and encouraged the local community to support the Friends and the Baths, praising the hard work of the Friends group and the contributions that the local community have made to the campaign.

Last week Rachel spoke at the Christian Socialist Movement's Annual 'Tawney Dialogue'. The theme of this year's event was responsible capitalism, and Rachel was in conversation with Lord Myners and Revd Dr. John Hughes, chaired by Alun Michael MP.

As part of her speech she said:

"..the need for a better capitalism goes to something deeper than the technical economic arguments about exports, employment, the public finances and the Gross Domestic Product – important as these are. It’s also a moral argument about the kind of lives we lead, and the kind of society we want to be a part of – as the title for this evening’s discussion suggests, the relationships that are the real fabric of our economy."

Her fuller comments can be downloaded [Check Against Delivery]here, or on the CSM website, here.

Rachel was given the exciting task recently of opening an amazing ’Living Classroom’ at Holy Families RC Primary school in Armley.

At a special assembly the children had explained how they had been involved with all the plans for this outside classroom and one class had even had the important task of looking after the eggs until they hatched into baby chicks!

There was some wonderful singing from Key Stage one pupils. After cutting the yellow ribbon Rachel was able to watch the children carefully let the animals out; the hens, ducks and rabbits were allowed to roam free. At the end of the visit Rachel took home very fresh duck and hen eggs for her tea.

Rachel recently visited Christian Aid at their offices in Leeds.

A number of staff and volunteers met with Rachel and asked questions about the economy both in Britain and on an international level. Rachel was especially interested to hear about Christian Aid’s tax justice campaign.

A number of those meeting Rachel were taking part in the ‘Live below the Line’ initiative where people put themselves in the position of living in extreme poverty by eating and drinking for only £1 a day for 5 days, Rachel looks forward to hear how they got on with such a daunting challenge.

St. Marys Hospital is a base for a range of community based services for people of distinct ages- some of which are targeted at people living in West Leeds and some across the whole City. The hospital consists of various services regarding mental health and learning disability services that work with the service users, their families, carers and other agencies.
The hospital is also working to promote broad theme of health and inclusion, consultation events and training, all influenced by the service users themselves. Rachel got the chance to meet some of these users and discuss with them how they were benefitting from sessions that helped find good ways of promoting health messages to people who might find these services difficult to access.
Rachel said:
“It was excellent to get an opportunity to meet staff and service users. I was able to hear about innovative ways of providing care, and how people were benefitting from the range of services provided”.

Yesterday, Rachel and the Leeds West Labour Party hosted a lunchtime fundraising and post-election party at the fantastic Viva Cuba on Kirkstall road. Labour Party members, MPs, councillors, supporters, friends, family and students from across the city attended and Rachel gave a speech praising the hard campaign work of members and activists that resulted in 8 new Labour councillors in Leeds and gains throughout the UK, reiterating the message that Labour need to continue getting out on the doorstep, reaching out to individuals and their communities and re-engaging with non-registered voters.

Rachel would like to say a big thank you to everybody who attended and made this a great event and to Viva Cuba for hosting and providing excellent food.

As featured in the Yorkshire Evening Post today it is expected that senior councillors at Leeds City Council are expected to agree that control of the historic Bramley Baths be handed to the Friends of Bramley Baths, a group of community volunteers, under the council's community asset transfer policy. Rachel commented,

"I am delighted to hear that the Friends of Bramley Baths are close to taking on ownership of Bramley Baths and hope that we will be celebrating next week when the Council make their final decision. The Friends have worked incredibly hard to try and keep the Baths open for the people of Bramley and I wish them every success and hope that the local community will give them their full support"

The Bramley Baths Campaign:

The campaign to save Bramley Baths has been ongoing since early 2011, when the Baths faced the threat of total closure due to cuts to Leeds City Council's budget and Rachel, alongside local councillors, began the fight to keep the Baths open and ensure that opening hours weren't reduced too low. Local schools got involved in the campaign from the start when it became clear that their school swimming lessons at the Baths were under threat and hundreds of local residents signed petitions and wrote letters to Rachel's office voicing their support for the campaign.

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Rachel hailed the re-opening of Bramley Post Office last week as a victory for common sense.

After a week of negotiations between the Post Office, Bramley Shopping Centre and Rachel, the busy store was re-opened one week after closing, with an interim owner to take charge until a permanent subpostmaster is in place.

Rachel visited the store on Tuesday with Councillor Ted Hanley, met the workers who kept their jobs and also the driver of the Bramley Elderly Action bus, which made sure that users of the branch did not go without a post office.

She said "The decision to close the post office was handled irresponsibly, and the community were unacceptably left in the dark. I was concerned about people who would be unable to access key local services at the branch. After a week of negotiations I am pleased services have been restored, and look forward to visiting the store."

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Leeds City Council's 2012 election votes were counted on Friday. The results saw Labour increase their majority on the Council by 8, by taking seats including Headingley, Rothwell, Hyde Park and Woodhouse and Burmantofts and Richmond Hill.

Rachel visited key campaigners across the city through the course of the election, and was delighted with the election of so many new Labour Councillors.

In Leeds West, Alison Lowe was returned as the Councillor for Armley with 2,686 votes, Caroline Gruen was elected for the first time as Councillor for Bramley with 2,343 votes, and Lucinda Yeadon was returned as Kirkstall's Councillor with 3,006 votes. In Farnley and Wortley, Labour candidate David Dresser's campaign did not unfortunately pay off.

You can view the full election results for the city at http://www.leeds.gov.uk/Council_and_democracy/Councillors_democracy_and_elections/Local_Election_results_2012.aspx