The Yorkshire Evening Post had some news last week about an £8.5m retail hub planned for Armley. My mate Tony lives next to the development, right beside the prison, so I showed him the story and asked him what he thought. I say “mate”; he’s just a guy who props up the bar and dispenses opinions gratuitously in my favourite pub.
“Bloody great, Phil. About time. It’s a shit hole round there. No shops for sodding miles. I have to get a taxi to pick up an Evening Post!”
“That’s not exactly true,” I quibbled, “the Nisa on Hall Lane sells papers. It’s five minutes.”
“Not with my legs,” he said, “not up that hill. It would kill me.”
I agreed that the local press was not worth dying for. It is a steep hill.
“Well, okay. The shopping situation isn’t ideal,” I said, “but look at what you’re losing. What about the environment? What about your community?”
Tony took a last sip of his Carlsberg and wiggled his glass at the bar staff. He turned and looked at me like I’d just enquired if he’d ever considered a hand-crafted, organic wheat beer.
“It’s a factory, Phil. It shut twenty years ago. It’s been a tip ever since. Looks like they are finally going to do something with it. I reckon my neighbours will like the shops.”
He turned away and started a conversation with a nearby table about some Italian guy and the local football team.
Obviously Tony didn’t get it. Tony is a retired builder – he once told me he helped build the wall around armley prison – living in the house his parents owned. I was sure some of his neighbours would not be so obtuse.
On my way back to Armley that evening I walked through the estate at the back of the prison and took a detour through the couple of small streets that will be directly behind the shopping development in the news, hoping to chat to anyone I bumped into.
The estate has one shop; a pharmacy. You can’t wander the aisles in this pharmacy or while away ten minutes comparing ingredients on specific types of medications while you wait for a prescription (I do this a lot since I read Ben Goldacre’s books). The pharmacists and counter assistants are behind a perspex, protective screen. You press a buzzer to gain entry. Last time I was in there a child of one of the customers urinated openly in the corridor as his mum banged on the glass demanding something or other that wasn’t on the prescription. My sister works in the nursery at the school opposite this pharmacy.
The only people I came across was a taxi driver about to start his shift and a middle aged lady with a very pronounced motor tremor who approached me wanting to know if there was a bus due to Armley town centre. Both seemed uninterested in my question about the wider implications of the development of a large retail hub around the corner; “shops a’good, init?” offered the taxi driver. “Get a lot of fares from Asda.”
The couple of streets (Abbott View and Elsworth St, 15 mins walk to Armley Town St according to Google Maps if you are interested) were a bit livelier. “Brilliant news!” “I can walk there,” and “Great! That means I don’t need the car,” were some of the responses. 100% positive.
A couple of people mentioned the fear of crime (“junkies cut through there,”) and the feeling that the area had been abandoned (“it’s great something is being done, finally!”) Not one person even considered there may be a downside to the development.
There is of course a downside or two. Mentioned by a couple of people on Twitter
So there's a Supreme Court hearing over dangerous levels of air pollution in Leeds and … http://t.co/wvaXC7LQPw
— James (@Khopea) April 16, 2015
@davidinwrofy @philkirby @EmmaMBearman we don't need a retail park that feeds traffic, we need a mixed use liveable solution…
— Pete Zanzottera (@PeteZanzottera) April 16, 2015
For the people who live in this sort of area the prospect of any amenity far outweighs the supposed negative impacts on the environment or community. More people around here may actually be encouraged to walk to the shops rather than drive, so the local CO2 contribution may in fact be reduced. And the local community has had to suffer a fenced off waste land on the doorstep for twenty years, an ugly, dispiriting, crime-magnet. Twenty years is a long time. If the “community” had had any solution it’s been a bit slack proposing one. So perhaps this big drive-in retail shed development isn’t so bad at all.
Something must be done.
This is something.
Therefore we must do this.
They call this the politicians fallacy…
Did you notice the poor devil trying to cross Armley Road in the artist’s impression? It looks such a splendid place to walk…
There’s no sign that the developer has even thought about making the slightest gesture towards making this a liveable space, it’s just carparking attached to retail sheds.
But if it’s what the public wants…
Oh dear a bit patronising here Phil
“Well, okay. The shopping situation isn’t ideal,” I said, “but look at what you’re losing. What about the environment? What about your community?”
Tony took a last sip of his Carlsberg and wiggled his glass at the bar staff. He turned and looked at me like I’d just enquired if he’d ever considered a hand-crafted, organic wheat beer. – (must be what you prefer Phil)
“It’s a factory, Phil. It shut twenty years ago. It’s been a tip ever since. Looks like they are finally going to do something with it. I reckon my neighbours will like the shops.”
“Both seemed uninterested in my question about the wider implications of the development of a large retail hub around the corner; “shops a’good, init?” offered the taxi driver. “Get a lot of fares from Asda.”
“Not one person even considered there may be a downside to the development”
“If the “community” had had any solution it’s been a bit slack proposing one.”
I guess you just don’t like people in Armley and their unenlightened ideas which are obviously reflected in the fact that they let their children wee in the chemists.
Oh dear oh dear.
I was trying to take the piss out of my own “enlightened” attitude. I was one of the people getting all irate about the environmental impact and the loss of architectural excellence.
And I like Armley. I think the kid who was pissing in the pharmacy was rather more demonstrative of his feelings toward the community, don’t you? Maybe come and have a chat with my sister about some of the parents she deals with and their attitude to Armley? That would be enlightening.
Tony is a real guy, btw. He’s the guy in glasses, short grey hair, white jacket with green go-faster stripes, always at the far right of the downstairs bar in The Hedley Verity. Buy him a pint of Carlsberg and he’ll put the world to rights… don’t buy him a pint and he’ll still talk your ear off. He genuinely did help build the new wall of Armley nick (he has plenty of stories about that!) and he does live in the row of houses you see in the artist’s impression. Go talk to him, he’ll tell you all about how Armley used to be when the factories were working places and there were shops on the all the corners.
Lived on Wesley Road and Simpson Grove for many years so I guess the chat will not be needed.