I have just got home after driving round my neighbourhood of Chapeltown in Leeds, it was very quiet and calm with families walking down Chapeltown Rd and people coming out of local shops and cafes but I did see the tell-tales of inner city deprivation boarded-up houses, waste land and prostitution.
However, on Monday at 630pm a man was shot in the face in Chapeltown. The police arrived in force to the scene as did many local young people. There was a tense stand off between the young people and the police and a police dog being used to clear the area bit a 14 year old boy, it took the presence of local community workers to settle the situation and many tense hours followed with local people asking for the police not to bring in riot police or escalate their presence whilst appealing for calm. After midnight there were minor clashes with police and a car was burnt out, this is not a usual situation for Chapeltown and followed another shooting on the 2nd August where arrests have already been made.
Chapeltown is traditionally an area of migration into Leeds with Jews coming at the turn of the century, followed by Eastern European migrants then in the 1950s a large wave of immigration from the Caribbean started followed by South Asian communities moving in and more recently African and a new wave of Eastern European migrants. It hasn't been a well off area in anybody's living memory and the area has particularly high unemployment amongst young men.
Chapeltown had riots in 1975, 1981 and 1987 which scarred the reputation of Chapeltown in Leeds and beyond, but the community has worked hard to rebuild itself and get moving. However nobody in the establishment particularly the business establishment invests in Chapeltown. I spent 6 months running the local business centre in Chapeltown trying to help people start and grow businesses in the area, sadly now closed due to cuts. My experience there was local people struggled to gain bank accounts and loan finance for business start-up was almost impossible to get. There was no free cash machine until the local housing association worked hard to persuade HSBC to provide 1 cash machine outside their offices, that's for a population of 7,000 people. There's not a single bank branch, post office and no pub anymore - all the businesses are locally owned with no multiple retailers. Young people with a Chapeltown address find it hard to get job interviews and even harder to get jobs. We have worked hard to get things off the ground such as establishing a community development trust which now runs a community market where local people can start off their businesses like modern day Marks and Spencer as well as things we have always been proud of including Europe's longest running Carnival.
All of these factors actually explain more about why we haven't seen large scale disturbances and looting than why we would have had similar scenes to those being witnessed in London, Birmingham, Manchester and other places. Chapeltown people are fiercely proud of their area and don't want it to go backwards, don't want to lose the jobs we do have and don't want to retread a reputation for rioting and being an unsafe neighbourhood. Earlier today 100 local people turned out to march down Chapeltown Rd for a peace vigil reflecting the cohesiveness and positive attitudes prevalent here.
However we need to work hard to get people into jobs and have the services and facilities every neighbourhood should have which over time will help eradicate the symptoms of inner-city deprivation like drugs, prostitution, crime and family breakdown.