Guest polemicist, James Blythman, has a bit of a go at transport and planning and transport planning …
“Leeds city centre is so compact. It has everything you want in such a short walking distance.”
“Clarence (or now New again) Dock is ill thought out. What were they thinking building an out of town retail led mixed use development with no free car parking?”
Two statements which are both wrong but intrinsically linked.
I’m lucky enough to have visited a few great cities and unfortunately Sydney. What marks a great city out from the rest? Well quite a lot and probably more than what you can cobble together in 750 words. Personally one of the hallmarks is being able to wander about a city’s centre finding new things, angles and buildings that are not in the guide book and carelessly finding yourself in the suburbs.
So does Leeds have a centre you can wander about in? I think Hemingway (the Wayne one) put it in perspective a couple of years ago when he said Leeds was a place where you always seem to arrive at a dead end or a physical obstacle. These obstacles usually take the form of city centre motorways, viaducts, industrial estates or derelict land. This is perhaps what reinforces the general view the city centre is rather compact. But how compact is it really? Well, very, considering New Dock is in the heart of Leeds city centre and it struggles for footfall.
“Pardon? Have you just said New Dock is in the heart of Leeds city centre?”
“Yes, I’m a council planning document and I tell you it is. Do you not know Leeds city centre pretty much covers the whole area between the M621 to the universities?”
“The M621! It doesn’t go further than the river, you muppet.”
“I’m not a muppet, I’m a real, live boy planning document.”
“My god you must be right. You don’t have donkey ears, I see no cigar and your nose hasn’t changed. I’m confused though. Why are there so many big roads, no buildings, out of town shopping centres and little public transport?”
“You missed out the biggest room in world circa 1840. You really don’t get it do you?”
Well not many people do. And why would they? Many of the points above are valid. South of the river is the car-frenzied evil sibling of the North’s pedestrianisation. It has more stalled regeneration projects than you can shake a stick at. So where am I going with this?
If Leeds’ planning frameworks designates pretty much the whole of south central as the city centre why do we have such little strategic planning to support this. I’ll give you one such document. The emerging city centre transport policy up to 2030. Yes that’s right, 2030. The year Leeds will become the best city in the UK. Actually policy is a bit OTT. At present It’s simply a series of maps with pretty colours.
Just to rewind slightly. In the early 90’s Leeds, for its time, had a forward thinking transport policy which if you’ve been around since then have probably reaped the benefits of. This included the establishment of the public transport box (Headrow – Vicar Lane – Duncan Street & Boar Lane – Park Row) and within it the pedestrianised zone. Apparently people thought the council had gone mad pedestrianising Briggate – I can’t believe it once had 4 lanes of traffic. Other elements included the rather pedestrian unfriendly city loop and the East Leeds Link road. Still to materialise is the super tram that will now be a trolleybus.
Well the emerging transport policy looks to break new ground. This includes expanding the pedestrianised area north of the river and expanding the public transport box.
“Oh no what are they doing now? Doing something daft like send it south of the river?”
“No. I’m a muppet and no one takes any notice of me.”
“But they do. They want to build that city centre park full of office blocks south of the river.”
“Ah you’ve been reading up on stuff. But alas they won’t give it any transport except the trolleybus. The new transport box won’t even go south of the river. Apparently, the new south will be The Calls!”
Twenty years on, the city centre has reaped the benefits of a transformational transport policy. Okay, that and a credit bonanza. But it’s almost become a victim of its own success. While the pedestrianised zone attracts a mass of footfall if you take a walk outside the box it is a different story. Wander behind the Corn Exchange on a saturday afternoon and you could be forgiven for thinking you were in a ghost town. Lower Kirkgate couldn’t even secure private investment during the boom. The edges of the pedestrianised zone, marked by a fence of double deckers has arguably become a new mental barrier.
Last year the Lord Mayor (not the Mayor of) the City of London encouraged Northern counterparts to focus on speculative infrastructure projects to secure private investment. Cue derision … and rightly so, probably. Leaving the politics behind that statement to one side it is definitely what is needed in the city centre transport strategy.
Pedestrianisation attracts footfall which is perhaps why a city centre park is planned on the South Bank. Is that enough? Why not match the level of pedestrianisation north of the river in the south and build a public transport loop around its circumference? This could be complemented by a Leeds City Centre shuttle that enables the less mobile to traverse the centre.
Perhaps in 20 years when we live in the UK’s best city we may look back in disbelief that the city’s grandest streets – Vicar Lane, Boar Lane and the Headrow – were once upon a time chokka full of buses. Then again we may have new 21st Century spaces and streets south of the river that are even grander.
Uninterested as I am in shopping centres, I do think that the Eastgate development will help to open up the city centre right through to the Playhouse, which feels a little cut off. Perhaps a park south of the river would do the same for Boar Lane, although the railway track and its arches are a difficult barrier.
You didn’t mention the west end of the city centre, but that just looks like one big building site from the station onwards – wasted space!
The so called West End is an interesting point. Last week MEPC the owners of the Wellington Place site (between Wellington Street, Whitehall Road, Northern Street and the canal) were reported to have been fairly disgruntled at a local investment event. The reason: Leeds is rubbish at selling itself to anyone outside Leeds. Their site is predominantly prospective commercial office space so the general economy is doing them few favours.
But on the point of poor marketing. Marketing Leeds, the body responsible for selling err Leeds as a destination of all kinds recently re-branded. They are now called Leeds and Partners. Try Googling their new name and you can see where the guy from MEPC is coming from.
Won’t the 20million or whatever it is they are spending on a set of stairs out of the south of the station unlock the south of the city?
They’d have still done better using the granary wharf area for the city park, somewhere with a waterfront that could be exploited, and instead stuck the wretched crap they built there on the Criterion Place site. Too late I guess. Maybe exposing the old Kingsmill race that ran through CP could make it interesting, the current plans are tedious.
Good point on the southern entrance to the station. I did also fail to mention the HS2 station has been touted to be south of the river too … in 2033. A full 3 years after we become the best city in the UK.
I’d put money on Crown Point for HS2. It’s looking tired already, so chances are the site will be cleared in the next decade (there will be no tears or regrets). It used to be a big railway goods station so has an approach from the existing ex-midland railway route (inc. several bridges beneath roads still in place) that could be used for a fairly painless route into the city (minimal disruption). An alternative would be to come in a little closer and use the Tetley site via the same route, that site’s holding back on major redevelopment for now. The line could also then continue to the east and rejoin the existing railway near Marsh Lane, creating a bypass of the double-track viaduct that is something of a bottleneck through the centre. Seems to make sense!
Coming back to the original point, that could shift the focus of the centre southwards, and there’d be all these nice hotels at New Dock and to the east of the centre waiting to capitalise.
If a park had been built on Granary Wharf, it’d be totally off-radar of most people! At least with the current development down there (flats, a hotel, some decent bars and restaurants), there is enough of a flow of people that they become aware of the area. Having a southern station entrance will also help engrain the area (and Holbeck) more firmly into people’s consciousnesses.
‘Wretched crap’ is a very subjective comment as well – I think it looks pretty good, and by and large is well-built, innovative and uses red brick to fit in with the area(certainly more imaginative than a lot of the dull terracotta/zinc tile-clad buildings that have gone up in the last 10 years). What would you actually
I would normally agree, but I took a walk to The New Dock as it will be called from Munro House where I’m based – which is the wrong side of the bus station perceptually. It’s not a walk of beauty as you have a constant flow of 2 lanes of traffic most of the way until you hit the Royal Armouries Bridge. Takes about 7 minutes if you don’t shoe gaze too much.
Once I got to the bridge I was surprised now that a lot of Tetley’s sheds have been flattened how close the Armouries are to what will be a huge 900 space long stay car park and PSL art Gallery. I could see The Candle Tower and Bridgewater place in a vista previously blocked. It’s still pretty tough to walk the full stretch of the river, but I suspect that Allied London, the developers behind The New Dock will be keen as mustard to galavnise the waterfront groups into action to make it a destination from the Train Station, and so this could finally prompt progress.
Either way perceptually it brought Granary Wharf and south of the river into a focus I had not experienced before
south of the railway line and eat of the bus station & Playhouse is generally a God-awful mess of loops of one way roads full of wonderful SLOAP (Space Left Over After Planning, essentially useless bits of grass). I think it’s why Clarence/Liberty/New/Flibbertygibberty Dock and Granary Wharf get little footfall, although to be fair, I think Granary Wharf and Holbeck Urban Village are mostly well put together.
The people behind the southside city park hopefully know what they’re doing, but I feel it will take a lot more than that for most people to place bits of LS11 as part of the city centre…
hmmmm…lots of talk of Leeds being the ‘best’ in the UK!! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha sorry got to laugh!!! What they mean is Best for shopping….and even that might not happen!
Leeds has the potential to be a great major city, the south of the river has already opened up with hunslet lane being reopened and the alf cookes print works providing a wonderful focal point passed the old crown pub! These buildings (the only remnants of what remains of what was actually once a thriving city centre) are amazingl assets and will do wonders for regeneration of this area.
I’m not sure the park is in the right location (maybe the civic architect went a bit too ‘conceptual’ on this as Hunslet Lane is a street first and foremost!) but whatever happens south of the river it simply MUST connect to the communities down there!! Holbeck urban village fundamentally failed because it didnt connect to the people who needed it and unless we front foot the planning adgenda and get a decent plan (and not one of these silly coloured Policy led red line things) based on the area’s assets and connections, then the rest of ‘south bank’ will go the same way!
Thanks for the feedback. So turning a few points on their head:
– What makes good /bad public space?
– What mix of enterprise is best suited to link housing estates and the city centre?
– Should the Govt announce where HS2 Leeds will be based sooner to instigate development?
– Which roads around Leeds City are pointless?
To add a little additional light, all through the 90s the south of the river area was touted as a re-generation, brown field area and it was all coupled to Leeds Supertram… when that project fell over we were left with the tatters of a master planning exercise and everything sort of post justifies itself now. No wonder it all looks a bit odd as the Middleton spur of the tram was what it all hung off…
As a strange aside has anyone seen the 1930s drawing of Leeds City Square with an underground system and station beneath it? If anything,this proves that forward planning should not be a transport led process, otherwise we will end up where we are headed…
There’s a copy of the City Square underground station drawing on
SkyScraper City. Shame the lines would cost about £220m a km.