Since March 2020, at the beginning of Covid, the Pudsey Park Visitors' Centre and Glasshouse have been vacant, with the Leeds City Council decision firstly that they should be closed for the pandemic and then that their upkeep and staffing costs were too high to justify (and the live animals housed there before are no longer an option due to the costs of regulation of small zoos).
In summer 2022 the council made the decision that the buildings should be made available for a Community Asset Transfer.
We at Pudsey Community Project submitted our Expression of Interest to acquire and protect the buildings for the local community. Unfortunately since then there has been next to no progress on the asset transfer and as of February 2024 the process had been frozen and potentially jeopardised due to a citywide asset review necessitated by the council's finances and cuts. 

Pudsey Park is a much visited and loved open space in the middle of Pudsey, and the community are not happy with these buildings being left to deteriorate empty for years rather than being used for the people of the town. We are a well-established grass-roots community organisation and passionate about ensuring local people have the resources they need to flourish and enjoy their locality.

Our plans for the buildings include: for the Visitors' Centre, publicly accessible toilets; a small low-cost volunteer-run kiosk providing simple drinks and snacks for the park users; exhibition and activity space for park-based events; and to operate a 6 day a week youth and children's group venue to help increase the offering for young people locally and reduce youth antisocial behaviour; as well as the Glasshouse to be run in partnership with local schools as a horticultural classroom space for helping children engage with learning how to help things grow, and especially as a quiet space for working with children with special educational needs. Food grown there would be used locally in charity food provision.

We are a medium-sized charity with the organisational structure and funding history to make this work despite the costs involved - we have a track record in delivering for our community and already operate 7 children's and youth groups working with over 100 young people.

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We will do whatever we can to ensure the renewal of the Pudsey Park buildings and have been in conversation for two years with the council about taking on management of the buildings. We need this stalled process to be resumed and ask if you can support our lobbying for a future for these buildings by supporting our campaign below. 

If you want to help us secure the future of Pudsey Park's Visitors' Centre and Glasshouse, please register your support with the simple form below, ticking both boxes - and feel free to add comments of support on it - if you do, we may quote them in support together with your first initial (e.g. "N"). Thank you!