During September and October, Dan Booth (Parks and Landscapes Manager, JRHT) and his team will be holding a series of walkarounds around the community. Â
The purpose of these walkarounds is to provide residents with the opportunity to raise any questions or concerns about landscaping directly with Dan and his team. As well as the opportunity for residents to share ideas about the future of landscaping within Derwenthorpe. Â
Each week, the walkaround will focus on a particular area within the community, all starting at 1.00 pm from the energy centre, except Rowntree starting the substation on Meadlands Mews. It is anticipated the walkabouts will take no longer than one hour.
16 September ~ Lotherington, including Lotherington Avenue, Lotherington Mews and Temple Avenue
30th September ~ Seebohm, including St Aelreds Mews, Seebohm Mews, Derwent Way and Derwent Place
7th October ~ Rowntree, including Holly Close, Meadlands Mews and Pearson Place
14th October ~ Stephenson, including Derwent Mews and Derwent Way
Residents are encouraged to come along.  If you have any questions about the walkabouts, please contact Dan Booth at dan.booth@jrht.org.ukÂ
Developing a landscaping strategy for Derwenthorpe
This summer will see the start of community research to help develop a vision for the sustainable long term future management of all of the outdoor spaces at Derwenthorpe. Abbie and Roger will be attending events and talking to residents to help gain a better understanding of the things that people like about the Derwenthorpe landscape, the things they don’t like and their ideas for the future.Â
Abbie said:
“This will be an important first step towards developing a comprehensive plan together and we hope to talk to people of all ages and backgrounds.”
People will be encouraged to chat, draw pictures, write thoughts down, take photos, video clips, etc. so please do stop and chat to them if you see them out and about.
JRHT are working with the Derwenthorpe Governance Group (DGG) and Derwenthorpe Nature Group (DNG) to develop the landscape strategy. You can contact us with your thoughts or to express interest in participating via the following channels:
Last year wasn’t good for our swans. One got tangled in fishing line (and rescued). Then they all got caught in an oil slick in the beck, which was expensive to clean up. And finally, the adult male flew into one of our smaller houses, and died.
This year, the female found herself a new mate. At that time, the three surviving cygnets left – perhaps chased away by the new male. Still, they seemed strong enough to fare well by then.
This year, we have six new cygnets. Including a very special one. She seems to be “leucistic” (pronounced “LUKE-istick”). The word is related to leucocyte: white blood cell, and leukeamia: a disease of white blood cells. Leucism is a genetic colour variation, like a mild form of albinism. Sometimes leucistic swans are called “polish”, as opposed to the normal “royal” swans.
The nearest cygnet may be leucistic.
The rightmost cygnet may be leucistic.
Leucistic cygnet
Sadly, the colour makes leucistic swans more vulnerable to predators. But, if they do survive, females are more likely to breed earlier because they look more adult.
Derwenthorpe is designed to be low density and as a consequence we are fortunate to have several large green spaces. A collaboration between the Nature Group and JRHT has resulted in names for these spaces; Beck Field, Crescent Park, Holly Ings, Meadlands Green and St Aelreds Meadow.
Consequently our map of the estate has been updated. Click here to download a pdf version of the map, which should print neatly on A4 paper.
Do let us know in the comments below if you spot any wrong or missing details.
At our last All Residents’ Meeting the topic of anti-social behaviour came up. Several residents had concerns about young people behaving inappropriately in some of the public areas within the estate.
Some residents have also received a letter from the police about anti-social behaviour, but also carrying a JRHT logo. As far as we know, the letter only went to the flats, but we don’t know why that would be.
The DRA core team are currently looking into the situation. We have made contact with various local agencies with a view to working with then, and residents to develop a Derwenthorpe strategy.
Please let us know if you have a particular interest in working together to find practical ways to reduce anti-social behaviour on the estate.
Following the recent leaflet from JRHT about planned construction work, the Derwenthorpe Residents Association has had quite a lot of feedback from people in the community who are extremely concerned about the use of the Central Square area as a compound during the development of Phase 5.
We think it’s very important that JRHT understand the strength of feeling in the community about this and so the DRA have started a petition with the wording:
“We oppose the proposed plans by the firm building Phase 5, having access to use the Central Area Compound. We want to see the Central Area raising of road levels, and the creation of a New Central Area completed as a priority.”
Volunteers are going door-to-door to collect signatures and so you should hear from them in the next week.
In February 2020, just before the COVID-19 lockdown, Derwenthorpe Residents Association surveyed residents views on community infrastructure: the things that make it easy to get to know your neighbours.
We knocked on every door on the estate, and asked people to complete our survey on paper, or online. Where there was no answer, we left a copy of the survey, which included the address of the online survey. In all, we got 123 responses, which is about 25% of all households. So, not completely representative, but we thought it was quite good given that we didn’t follow up.
We asked “What do you like about Derwenthorpe?”, and tagged the answers, with one or more of these themes:
Tags
Number
Per cent
notes
Community
75
61%
Incl “neighbours”, and “people”
Green space
69
57%
Incl “lakes”, and “wildlife”
Houses
54
44%
Incl internal utility and external appearance.
Transport
28
23%
Incl cycle route 66, buses, and access to A64
Quietness
27
22%
Location
24
20%
Sustainability
17
14%
Safety
9
7.4%
No response
5
4.1%
Diversity
4
3.3%
Negative
3
2.5%
community space
2
1.6%
What do you like about Derwenthorpe? % of people that mentioned each theme.
What community events have you attended in the last 12 months?
We asked which of these events you’d participated in, in the past year. 80% of you had been to one or more events. And, on average, people had been to four of these types of event.
To create a true community building, which of the following are needed?
We asked what you facilities you thought were important for a community centre.
Facility
Ticked
%
Kitchen
93
75.6%
Toilets
88
71.5%
Storage
58
47.2%
Larger Meeting Rooms
62
50.4%
Process for Booking
85
69.1%
Disabled Access
69
56.1%
Parking
21
17.1%
Other
49
39.8%
What facilities are important for a community building?
We asked what the best time to hold events would be. Of course, it will depend on the event, but here’s what you said:
The best times to hold events at Derwenthorpe (number of respondents who chose each time slot; some chose more than one time slot).
Household composition
We asked about the numbers of adults and children in each household. We’ve summarised the results in this table. Of the 78 children reported, twenty were under 4, forty-three were 4 to 10, and fifteen were 11 to 16. There were 232 adults reported.
Household composition
number of households
One adult, no children
18
One adult, with children
4
Two adults, no children
46
Two adults, 1 child
19
Two adults, 2 children
20
Two adults, 3 children
4
Three or more adults
10
NB: one of the three adult households also had a teenage child with them. Some of these adults may be over-fifteen-year-old teenagers. We didn’t ask whether “two adults” were a couple, or anything else about the relationships between people.
Thank you
We’re grateful to those who responded. And, we’re sorry it took so long to publish these results. Things kind of got in the way in 2020! Please let us know if you have any comments or questions. The survey happened just before the first COVID lockdown. Do you think differently about Derwenthorpe now?
JRHT have reopened the play park. Earlier today, we had an email saying:
…JRHT have decided to open up the KidsZone play park from Monday 6 July.
The park will be open as usual from 9am – 7pm, 7 days per week.
We kindly ask that all park users abide by government guidance during these challenging times, as on-site staff will not be monitoring the park throughout the day/during the weekends.
JRHT email.
Please take care. There’s still a substantial amount of Covid-19 around. So plenty of distancing and hand washing is advised. Perhaps take some hand sanitiser if taking your kids to play.
Note that one of the internal gates is locked, because it is faulty. But you can still access all areas.
Derwenthorpe Residents' Association 