JRHT have informed us that the central play area will be closed tomorrow: Thursday 10 June 2021, to allow equipment to be repaired.
The damaged safety surface that was reported to them has now been repaired.
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Category: Public areas
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A leucistic cygnet?
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.
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.
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Anti-social behaviour
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.
If you’d like to get involved in collecting signatures please email abcd@derwenthorpe.co.uk
We’d also like to hear any other feedback you have on JRHT’s leaflet, feel free to leave a comment or drop us an email
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.
There’s a more detailed report available:
What do you like about Derwenthorpe?
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 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% |
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:
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 |
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?
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Play park open
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.
