Events aplenty as Todmorden Town Hall celebrates 150th birthday
Plus, Calderdale Council leading the way with AI innovation
Hello and welcome to The Calderdale Lead.
There’s birthday celebrations aplenty as Todmorden Town Hall celebrates its 150th this weekend (and I turn 41 today!).
We’ve got a full run down of what’s being planned and how people can get involved in the celebrations.
Plus, we’ve got a guest reporter for this edition (more on them later) and they’re looking at Calderdale Council’s use of AI and how it’s leading the way nationally.
So, on with the news…
Spectacular film screening at heart of birthday celebrations
There’s a host of events planned for this weekend as the spectacular Todmorden Town Hall celebrates its 150th birthday.
The Grade I-listed building - which used to straddle the Lancashire and Yorkshire border until the county boundary was moved on January 1st 1888 - is regarded as one of the finest in the country.
The centrepiece of this weekend’s celebrations will be the screening of a special film on the front of the Town Hall!
Working with arts company Illuminos from just over the border in Lancashire, organisers have produced a short film featuring characters and events from Todmorden’s past and present, which will be projected onto the wonderful frieze to be viewed from Water Street.
Performances of the short film will take place on Saturday at 7.30pm, 8pm, and then every 15 minutes from 8.30pm and Sunday every 15 minutes starting at 8.30pm. The later start time is due to the clocks going forward and the need for it to be dark.
There’s also a chance on both days to take a peek into the past with a special promenade play taking place inside the building.
Visitors will be able to see fascinating snippets of life in the Town Hall played in the actual rooms in which they took place.
With a cast of local residents, the play will be taking a humorous glimpse into history and a quick peek into life behind the scenes of the iconic building.
The Town Hall was designed by John Gibson, who was an assistant to Sir Charles Barry and assisted him in the drawings of the Houses of Parliament.
Inside the building there is an old Magistrate's Court which now serves as the Todmorden Town Council Chamber and the spectacular ballroom upstairs spans the length of the building.
One of the most striking features of the building is the pediment which sits on the front, representing the two counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
To the left-hand side of the pediment the figures represent the Lancashire cotton industry, the two women have filled and empty bobbins in their hands with finished cloth at their feet. Next sits a clerk at his desk inspecting a bale of raw cotton being delivered by a younger man.
And on the right-hand side the first gentleman is working at an anvil, the ladies are binding and cutting wheat sheafs while the third figure, a shepherd, reclines with his crook. (As an interesting aside, the shepherd is a copy of the reclining figure from the Elgin Marbles.) They represent, in turn, the engineering and agricultural industries of Yorkshire.
The sculptures were all created by Charles Henry Mabey, who also created the medallions that adorn the ballroom.
For more information about the full range of events, click here.
Calderdale leads national effort on AI in public services
By Simon Gatherbor
Calderdale Council is at the forefront of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into public services, aiming to enhance efficiency and cybersecurity, councillors were told this week.
During a recent scrutiny meeting, IT officers highlighted that AI is shaping nearly every aspect of local government operations. However, they stressed the need for robust policies to ensure its safe, effective, and consistent use.
The council is a key contributor to the Society for Innovation, Technology and Modernisation’s AI policy, helping to establish national guidelines for AI adoption in public services.
Since March 2023, Calderdale staff have been working with external partners to explore AI applications, focusing on business cases and the potential benefits of AI within existing technology.
AI is already strengthening the council’s cybersecurity by improving threat detection, malware identification, and phishing protection.
Calderdale will also participate in the UK’s first national pilot of a security operations centre, enhancing AI-driven cybersecurity while reducing costs.
Various elements of concern with AI, including ethics, are being considered as part of wider improvements in ensuring potential systems and solutions meet the council’s minimum technical specification standards.
AI enhances threat detection, malware identification, automated response, vulnerability management, phishing detection, and security analytics.
But it can also drive sophisticated cyber-attacks, phishing, and deepfakes, councillors were told.
“Our network solutions already use a significant amount of AI capability to ensure we are abreast of cyber-attack profiles and methods.
“This will be further enhanced when we engage in the first national pilot of a security operations centre.
“This provides improved AI capabilities – and is a 24-hour by seven-days-a-week solution – but also demonstrates our use of collaboration to maintain services and reduce costs,” the report to the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee said.
Additional reporting by the LDRS’ John Greenwood.
That’s it for this midweek edition of The Calderdale Lead.
Did you all spot the significance of the AI report being written by Simon Gatherbor? Well, his name is an anagram of the robots are coming and the piece was written entirely using AI! (Using a report by the LDRS’ John Greenwood).
(Don’t worry - the AI-driven story is just a one-off, I’m still at the wheel!)
As always, if you have anything you think I should be reporting on or looking into then I’m on calderdale@thelead.uk
Have a great week and we’ll be back in your inboxes on Sunday!
Andrew