Dan Cohen

Dan Cohen – working for Alwoodley, working for you!

Born and bred in Alwoodley, Councillor Dan Cohen was honoured and delighted to have been elected to represent the ward he has always called home in May 2011 securing over 53% of votes cast.

He is married to Elayna and together they have 3 young children. A solicitor by profession and now Managing Director of Madison Hosiery Limited, a successful Leeds company employing over 100 people Dan is the Co–Founder of the Cohen Foundation, a charitable foundation that has given out over £230,000 of grants over the past 5 years to worthy causes.

Dan is committed to ensuring that all the residents of Alwoodley get the best possible local services and that Alwoodley remains ‘the’ fantastic part of a fantastic city to live in.

Have Vodafone got the message

Working with local residents and Slaid Hill in Bloom, Councillor Dan Cohen has successfully challenged the planned 12.5m tall mobile phone mast at the junction of Wike Ridge Lane and Wigton Lane, after Vodafone appealed against Leeds City Councils refusal to allow the mast last year.

Councillor Dan Cohen said “Their appeal was rejected after a good deal of local resistance to the project.”

“Local people have volunteered their time and energy, especially the members of Slaid Hill in Bloom, to make sure that the gardens around the site are beautifully maintained. If this mast had been permitted it would damage the attractiveness of the area people have worked so hard to create.”

“Like most local residents, I too want to see improved mobile phone and 3G signals in this part of the ward. I have offered several times to meet with phone companies to examine other suitable sites. I hope now they will take up this offer”

Not a First Class Service

Cllr Peter Harrand and Cllr Dan Cohen recently hosted a second passenger forum, giving customers of First Bus Number 7 and Number 48 services the opportunity to challenge First on the poor levels of reliability, frequency of service, driving quality and availability of evening buses.

Residents did agree that since the first meeting earlier this year there had been some improvements – but that there was still much improvement needed.

As Cllr Harrand explained to Colin Booth of First at the meeting “The people here are only a small sample of the passengers who complain to us. There are hundreds more who are quietly frustrated at the delays and the changes in timetables.”

Mr. Booth has promised that there will be definite improvements in service in the coming months and has agreed to meet again with Alwoodley Councillors and passengers to report on progress in early 2013.

Cllr Cohen said to In Touch “Any Alwoodley residents that would like to be invited to the meeting early next year should contact any of the Alwoodley Councillors – and we can add your name to the rapidly growing list”

It’s not Bin Easy

Residents will have noticed smart new litter bins springing up across the ward. As Cllr Buckley explained “litter is such a terrible blight to any street, anything we can do to make it easier for people to dispose of rubbish has to be a benefit”.

The bins that we have struggled to fund are Grit Bins. We get many requests for these, but funding has always been a struggle (as some people seem to believe the grit in these bins is for their own personal use).

Cllr Cohen told In Touch “We have been able to put funding together to provide a small number of additional grit bins – hopefully very soon. We are not going to have enough funding to provide a grit bin for every street that needs one – but we will try and place the 4 or 5 bins we are getting in the most needed areas first – and try for more funding next year!”