Members of the Pudsey Greenside Greenway Group are working with West Yorkshire Bat Group.

At the latest Bat Group training batty enthusiasts met at St Chads in Far Headingley and were reminded how the West Yorkshire Bat Survey works with volunteers walking 3 to 4 kilometres with specialist bat detection equipment along a pre determined route at night.

These routes are carefully selected and spaced evenly across the county.  At this latest training we learned how use the equipment and also undertook some troubleshooting before walking through some nearby woods and detecting some very obliging Pipistrelle and Soprano Pipistrelle bats.

Greenside Greenway Group will have access to the equipment to monitor our Pudsey Bats in May/June and again in July/August.

Many thanks to all the volunteers that came out on a rainy Saturday morning to help us clear litter from the proposed route of the Greenway. We cleared several bags of rubbish from the footpaths running from Lowtown to Robin Lane.

We continue to campaign against the rail cutting full infill planning application which is currently still undecided. We understand the developer is reconsidering the pending planning application.

We are still fundraising for a full feasibility study of the three phases of the proposed Greenside Greenway route.

Greenside Greenway group have just undertaken a two hour litter pick on the section of old railway line between New Street and South Parade. We counted 35 sacks of rubbish, plus lots of other big objects. We also cleared to one side many bricks, stones and branches to improve the path.

Even though we will have a little while to wait until the outcome of the planning application, we are confident that the full infill of the railway cutting will be rejected by Leeds City Council.

Again, thanks to all our supporters for submitting objections, at the last count we were well over 350! If you know anyone that still needs to submit one, it appears the portal is still open!

In anticipation of the planning application being rejected, we are pressing ahead with obtaining funding for the feasibility study. To that end, Andrew, David, and Martin met on 4th December, with representatives of Sustrans to talk about possible avenues. We are still in need of a fundraising coordinator, so if you think that could be you please get in touch by emailing greensidegreenway@gmail.com.

Our plan now is to contact organisations that have previously told us they may be able to match fund some of the cost. Once we know how much they are prepared to match fund, we will know how much we need to raise as an organisation.

We welcome any help or suggestions, so if you have any ideas for funding, please do get in touch.

As reported in the Yorkshire Evening Post today, a new greenway is being built to link Castleford to Wakefield. The length is similar to that of our proposed Greenside Greenway and even features a new bridge, again, similar to what we would need.

Total cost? Just under £3 million. Just goes to show there is investment available, we just need to make the case. First though, we must stop the infill!