Leeds residents have revealed what it’s like to live in the shadows of Leeds Prison.
HM Prison Leeds has been located on Gloucester Terrace in Armley since 1847. It’s the second highest category of a prison in the UK, Category B which means prisoners don’t require maximum security but escape needs to be made very difficult.
Residents who live mere yards away from the “eyesore” prison keep their curtains closed. They've said prisoner’s acquaintances tend to visit and shout over the towering wall and even set off fireworks on special occasions.
Read more: 'Dirty' Leeds takeaway with no working hand washing basin
The locals have also said they live in fear of antisocial quad bikers who rip up the communal green space as they seem to enjoy flagrantly disregarding the law so close to the high security prison wall. Nevertheless, the CCTV cameras, regular drones zooming over and patrols from the security make the residents feel more secure.
Shauni Wilmoth, 26, has been living there for four years and is originally from Pudsey. She earns an honest wage by arranging NHS referrals but feels like she has to keep her curtains closed.
Shauni said: “It’s noisier here, there’s usually people around causing bother. We usually hear people shouting into the prison, like just ‘hello’.
"Around Christmas time, we hear people shouting ‘Happy Christmas’ to people. I usually keep the curtains closed as you can see right into our house from the front.
“With all the cameras, I felt there’d be a lot less people causing bother. There’s cameras all around the prison, so it’s good on a security level.”
Kim Walker, 63, has lived there for ten years and went to the local school when she was a young child. The mother-of-three says prisoner’s family or friends sometimes go as far as setting off fireworks outside the prison walls.
Kim said: “Sometimes if they’ve got a friend or relative in the prison, and if it’s their birthday, Christmas or New Year they tend to stand outside and let off fireworks. We sometimes hear them shouting things. We get more trouble with the kids on their quadbikes.”
Speaking about her neighbours, the credit control supervisor Kim added: “It’s a really quiet, really nice street and everyone is really friendly and I think that’s because of the prison.
“For a start, we have a lot of security going around. When the prisoners are exercising, they send up drones and I do sometimes think there’s cameras we can’t even see. I do feel very safe. It’s just nice.”
Iris Cosgrove, 66, has lived beside the prison for 35 years and opened up about how she feels intimidated by the quad biking youths as she’s “not young and there’s usually quite a few of them”.
Iris said: “There’s CCTV cameras. But we do get a bit of trouble as well, we get quad bikers on the grass. We want boulders or something like that to keep them off.
“We get the odd shouting. The only other thing I can think of is travellers coming here for a funeral on the grass. It was such a mess, we all had to clear up afterwards.”
But she relents that: “Apart from it being the obvious eyesore, we’ve got the trees and cherry blossoms, it’s lovely around here.”
The mother of one, 31, has said during the late Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee weekend in June, the prisoners got involved in their neighbourhood bingo session which they were having as part of a street-part.
Iris says she tends to hear the prisoners playing football and they once even interrupted a neighbourhood game of bingo. Some of the prisoners were shouting “full house” and causing hysterics for the residents. Iris chuckled, “It’s not all bad, they can be quite amusing, everyone was laughing.”
Read next:
- Leeds residents hit back at 'old fuddy-duddys' who oppose new Wetherspoon pub
- Mums on mission to save Leeds park after arsonists 'burn it to the ground'
- Leeds City Council 'won't rule out' return of German Christmas market to the city
- Leeds city centre's newest building 'is like something from the 70s'
- Luxury £150million apartment neighbourhood with cinema and rooftop terraces opens in Leeds
