Our podcast goes mobile as our intrepid team head on a journey through Hull to discuss what’s happening and what may be happening next.

Rugby teams playing alongside butterflies, bees and thistles? Well, as our rewilding sports correspondent Angus Young relates, it just got a step closer.

A grassroots wildlife project at an amateur rugby league club in Hull is mixing nature with nurture. Volunteers at the West Hull club turned part of its home in North Road into an urban nature reserve, creating a new environmentally-friendly space in one of the city’s most deprived neighbourhoods.

The sports ground is known as Johnny Whitely Park, named in memory of the late rugby league legend. Now Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Outer Humber Officer Andrew Gibson, who has worked with club groundsmen and volunteers from the West Hull Community Hub which is based at the site, is hoping other sports clubs in the area will follow their example. He said: “This is honestly one of the best projects I have ever been involved with. We started out with a target of turning over 30 per cent of the ground to nature by 2030 and we did it within a year.”

What was once an entirely uniform grassed area now boasts a variety of different habitats. Mr Gibson explained: “At the start, we sat down with the groundsmen to work out how we could change the way the site was managed. There are two playing pitches and a training pitch but there was also a lot of additional land really doing nothing. It was all about encouraging them to try new things. Instead of cutting in straight lines like they have always done, we got them to cut more natural wavy edges to the borders and mow the areas between the pitches less often to allow  wildflowers to come through.”

In addition, hedgerows are now cut less often, encouraging them to flower and fruit properly, while a woodland walk has been created at the eastern end of the site along with a meadow where grasses are allowed to grow through the summer providing a food source for insects and small mammals. “To their credit, the guys really got it, “ said Mr Gibson. “I would love to see other amateur sports clubs and schools follow their lead. I’ve already had encouraging talks with the Rugby League about rolling out what we have done here elsewhere.” 

As well as the club’s groundsmen, the project has been supported by the Community Hub which opens two days a week as a social resource for people of all ages. Hub trustee Anji Gardiner said: “It all started when I was watching a game here with Johnny Whiteley’s daughter Kim and we got talking about getting a few bird boxes to put around the ground because there was so much greenery. I didn’t really know anything about birds and didn’t want to put them in the wrong place so we were pointed in Andrew’s direction. The first thing he said was: ‘I don’t do bird boxes’ but he agreed to come and see the site and we’ve never looked back. One of the first things we did together was organise a litter pick as part of the Great British Spring Clean event. The weather was horrendous but 300 people still turned up to take part. We knew then we were onto something.”

Mr Gibson said the most rewarding part of the project has been involving people who use the Community Hub as a regular meeting place. “It’s been wonderful to see what was previously just a big sports ground becoming something for all of the community to enjoy and being able to introduce nature into peoples’ lives.”

The Community Hub opens on Thursday, 10am to 3pm, and Fridays, 10am to 12.30pm, and regularly attracts around 100 people. It not only provides a place to meet and socialise but also a range of activities and free drinks and a hot meal for all attendees as well as a fortnightly advice session hosted by the city council.

Angus Young

Jerry Thompson, of the Hull Fishing Heritage Centre, recounts a night that will never be forgotten.

If you’ve ever been to The Deep, you may have met Dan. He’s a guide and here he tells us what his job entails.

A small square of concrete gives clue to the power once created in the city, finds our aged energy correspondent Angus Young.

Hull’s history is often to be found under our feet and there’s a perfect example embedded in a pavement in Guildhall Road in the city centre. At first glance, the battered manhole cover doesn’t look very interesting and is in stark contrast with all the adjacent shiny new public realm in Queens Gardens. But closer inspection of its metal nameplate reveals the words ‘Electric Light’. It’s a rare surviving throwback to the days when Hull generated its own electricity to create publicly-owned power.

The first steps were taken in 1880 when Hull Corporation successfully lobbied for new parliamentary legislation allowing a private company to generate and supply electricity for public lighting in the Old Town. The Hull (Corporation) Electric Lighting Act 1880 was only the second such legal authorisation in the country following similar legislation passed for Liverpool. However, technical problems would plague the early pioneering days of electricity in Hull and in 1884 the street lighting scheme was scrapped because it was so unreliable.

Undaunted, the Corporation decided to press on and build its own municipal power station in Dagger Lane which opened in 1893. Having secured further necessary parliamentary orders, electricity generated from the Dagger Lane station was initially supplied to 33 customers. Within five years, that number had jumped to 679. By then, the Corporation had established its own Electric Lighting Committee to oversee the management and supply of the electricity being generated.

The committee’s formation coincided with the opening of the Sculcoates Power Station next to the Beverley and Barmston Drain. Built and operated by the Corporation, this much larger power station not only provided power to expanding industries to the west of the Old Town but also to the east side of the River Hull. Its location next to the railway line running to the docks allowed for regular deliveries of coal to feed the station’s boilers while water from the drain provided all-important cooling. Operating data for 1923 show nearly 4,000 domestic customers were using electricity from Sculcoates while 122 street lights were illuminated every night courtesy of the same power source.

Two decades and a number of upgrades later, the station was supplying 95,000 customers, many of them beyond Hull’s boundary in Cottingham, Beverley, Hedon and Skirlaugh. Hull’s electric street lighting was also rolled out into neighbouring twins and villages in the East Riding where old lamp posts featuring the city’s famous Three Crowns logo can still be seen today.

For many years the Corporation’s Electricity Department operated a shop under the City Hall where the venue’s ticket and sales office is based today. Customers could pay their bills at the shop as well as see a range of new electric appliances and household gadgets. Later, a new shop opened in Ferensway in the same block as the Regal (ABC) cinema.

When the Central Electricity Board was created in 1926 with a remit to construct a national grid, Sculcoates was designated as a key supplier to the new system which connected large regional power stations to the grid. In 1939, almost one quarter of all the power generated in Hull was sold to the Central Electricity Board.

Sadly, the heyday of local power in local hands generating healthy profits to be spent locally were coming to an end. In 1948 the British electricity supply industry was nationalised and ownership of the Sculcoates power station was transferred from what was now Hull City Council to a new national body while distribution and sales responsibilities were switched to the new Yorkshire Electricity  Board. The Sculcoates station was eventually decommissioned and disconnected from the national grid in 1976.

Three years later its distinctive chimneys and 300ft high cooling tower were demolished. Today the old power station site is a housing estate.

Angus Young

Graduate of the Brit School Jessika Mae-Martin reports from Hull’s Music Library on why, in a digital age, some still prefer a bit of paper in their hands.

Back to Ours board member Malcolm stopped our crew in Victoria Square because he really wanted to tell us about his musical meanderings.

We can’t tell you who to vote for, but we can let you know how to vote. Here’s Hull’s longest-serving election journalist Angus Young with the lowdown.

The countdown is underway to the city council elections. Voters will go to the polls on Thursday, May 7, but there’s plenty going on before then. For a start, the pre-election period is already underway with the official publication of the Notice of Election by the council.

In his hi-tech era, it’s comforting to know this not only involves publishing the notice online but also attaching a good old-fashioned paper version to a cork noticeboard in the Guildhall using a couple of drawing pins. Council chief executive Matt Jukes recently performed the traditional tricky task of pushing the drawing pins in place without stabbing himself in the process. He said: “With our local electrons fast approaching, I would like to encourage all residents who aren’t already, to register to vote. In particular, any residents who have moved house, changed their name or turned 18 in the last year will need to register so that they are able to vote.

“It is also important to remind electors that, reflecting national legislation, they now need to show acceptable photo ID to vote at a polling station or, of course, you can register for a postal vote. These elections are the opportunity for residents to have their say on who represents them on Hull City Council, dealing with decisions and issues that directly affect our day-to-day lives.”

The deadline to register to vote is Monday, April 20, and the online process takes just five minutes. People can choose to vote by post for any reason, including if they cannot get to a polling station on Thursday 7 May. Applications can also be made online. It is also possible to vote by proxy, where a voter can appoint someone they trust to vote on their behalf. Applications for a proxy vote can also be made online.

Paper application forms for both postal and proxy votes can also be requested from the Electoral Services office by email: electoral.services@hullcc.gov.uk or by phone, 01482 613386.

The deadline for new postal vote applications or for changes to an existing postal or proxy votes is 5pm on Tuesday, April 21.

The deadline for new proxy vote applications is 5pm on Tuesday 28 April.

Meanwhile, if you fancy standing as a candidate you have until Friday, April 9, to submit your nomination papers.

The main political parties already have their candidates in place so anyone thinking of throwing their hat into the ring will probably have to stand as an independent. The full list of nominated candidates is expected to be published late on April 9. Of Hull’s 21 wards, one seat each in 19 wards is up for grabs on May 7. The two wards where elections are not taking place are Ings and Kingswood.

The council’s current political make-up has the Liberal Democrats as the majority group on 29 seats. Labour hold 23 seats while there are  five Independents. Of the seats on the council being contested in the elections, the Lib Dems currently hold ten seats while Labour hold nine. This year, for the first time, both Reform UK and the Green Party have already announced they will be fielding a full slate of candidates.

Angus Young

Andy Train, of Pride In Hull, takes a few minutes out of his day to explain what big church he likes best.

Amy Thompson, our Urban Mythbuster, heads down Hull History Centre to discover if we say Hull and not Kingston Upon Hull because of a row with the king.