“Excuse me. Where’s Leeds?”
I saw her stumble out of the Bishopgate Street tunnel exit of the train station looking rattled – who wouldn’t after coming down those stairs – and her eyes darted between the Dark Arches and City Square before they fixed on me.
I did my best Welcome to Leeds smile, and pointed the way I was going. “It’s just up here,” I said, wondering why the nearest wayfinding map I could spot was across two busy roads outside The Scarborough Taps, “though I suppose it depends on what it is you are looking for exactly.”
I pass the station a dozen or so times a week and get asked the same question a lot. Occasionally people are wanting the stag-and-hen-do hotel quarter, which as all Leeds people know is just South of the river. The opposite way to where I was just pointing.
She didn’t look like the type to wear the regulation t-shirt emblazoned with a crude sexual insinuation in pink 72pt Comic Sans. “Where are the best shops?” she asked. As soon as I confirmed the direction of the shopping quarter – across from the financial quarter, just below the civic quarter, further along than the skyscraper quarter but not so far out as the cultural quarter – she sprinted off as if on a mission to win the yellow jersey for fastest purchase of the day. It felt good to do my bit to support the local retail economy.
Of course I could have directed her back up the tunnel (don’t worry, I’m not so misanthropic as to subject anyone to that particular torment) and into the train station concourse where there’s the excellent Leeds Visitor Centre. Or at least there is for the time being as it looks as though the city’s major tourist information centre will likely be relocated in November to the Art Gallery shop/cafe.
I don’t have a quarrel with the reasoning behind the move, (though I have to agree with much of what Leeds Citizen had to say the other day) which is all about budgets and assets and priorities and refocusing on core services – all undeniably important, tangible things that the council is responsible for. But there’s something missing in this argument. Something intangible, but just as important. The cultural dimension (at first I wrote “symbolic dimension” but it’s a pompous sounding phrase I crossed it out – it probably is more accurate though.) What the location of a city’s Visitor Information Centre says about a place, and what it says about how a city values its visitors.
I understand the council has to be prudent and careful and accountable – sadly not all our prominent public servants appear to speak with One Voice when it comes to any of that – but they also want the city to be ambitious and inclusive and be about more than just the bottom line. Surely that’s why we had that big meeting at the Town Hall earlier this year when we all clapped and cheered and threw our (metaphorical) hats in the air at the prospect we could bid to be European Capital of Culture? If we can’t as a city maintain a visitor centre in the obvious place it should be (and go on, ask anyone, the train station is the place) then how on earth can we think we deserve to even think about bidding for Capital of Culture for heaven’s sake?
Personally I don’t think Leeds Visitor Centre is in exactly the right place now. It ought to be where Burger King and Journey’s Friend are currently. But obviously Leeds can’t aspire to the ambitions of a fast food chain or a minor purveyor of cigarettes and over-priced chocolate bars. At least let’s leave it where it is, in the runner up spot.
Relocating to the Art Gallery gives the wrong message. Again, thinking back to that meeting in the Town Hall, the excitement was about presenting Leeds as a city of culture – the whole of it geographically, demographically, artistically – not simply as a city with a central, established, entrenched cultural quarter. I’m not knocking the art gallery, but we can’t pretend the people who pass through there represent the diversity of the city in any way like the train station does. Or, in council speak, it’s “more accessible to all protected characteristics” (at least I think that’s what 4.2.1 means.)
Transferring to the Art Gallery cafe/shop also subtly shifts the aim and purpose of the visitor centre and what counts as success. People who come through the train station are fellow citizens who are given “a core service of welcoming and orientation” (3.2) Visitors to the service in the art gallery cafe/shop have become “customers” to be led toward the “high quality retail offer immediately adjacent.” (5.3) In the train station success is defined by qualities of friendliness and conviviality, about how people are made to feel good about the place they are visiting; in the art gallery the measure is the quantity of tat the gift shop can shift (no disrespect to the gift shop intended, I’m using the derogatory word for purely rhetorical reasons.)
If in a few months time I get asked the “where’s Leeds” question I hope I don’t think to myself, hmm, where indeed! Aren’t we meant to be aiming for “best city”? This decision is “less city.” Can’t we think of an imaginative way to keep the visitor center in the station? We all know that’s where it should be.
Refocussing on core services? That’ll be the day. If its good business and good politics it gets done. Good for the city? Well that’s another question…
Well said, Phil. And you are right. The visitor centre should be on the concourse of the train station. If we can’t fund a visitor centre on the train station, we should close up shop and board up the city.
Is Leeds the most innumerate city? A place of five quarters. (Also, I notice that the refurb of old Kirkgate is denominated “The Kirkgate Quarter” so that probably makes six). It reminds me of the late association football coach Tommy Docherty blathering on about a game of three halves. Ashamed to admit that I pass through Leeds station twice a day but have never set foot in the Visitor Centre. Must say I’m just pleased to escape the concourse as quickly as possible; it’s not a lingerer-friendly venue so not entirely ideal for a visitor centre. Personally I would dynamite the Black Prince in City Square and put up a Visitor Hut in its place.
Not a bad idea. Let’s recommend it to the board.
Hey old man haven’t you heard of a thing called the Internet and smart phone? Digital screens and Welcome Robots are planned to replace the need for human help. What century do you live in?
People will always prefer people. A programmed welcome is not a real welcome and who believes the sanitized, carefully selected information you get on digital screens? That’s exactly the way big corporations want us to relate to each other, through their medium, listening to the One Message.
And that scary hologram woman on the platform freaks me out every time.
There might be a saving to Leeds CC but not sure there is one to the public purse. Centre leaving the station means Metro/WYCA will have to find a new outlet for selling smart tickets and giving out bus and other onward journey info, (including journeys to places like Harewood House and other attractions people have just seen on the telly). I don’t imagine providing this service will be free.
The latest news suggest that the move will save the Council £50k per year. However, the Council report suggests that footfall will drop by an amount they can’t estimate (Nb Wasn’t York’s Tourist Information Point previously at the station?).
This is my issue. This is the part that needs quantifying as only then will it possible to estimate the opportunity cost of the move. They also haven’t valued the service based on it’s current footfall at it’s current location. Is this because the Council are not the ones to directly benefit from their own service?
A drop in footfall will lead to less enquiries and tourist organisations or business’ will lose out.
If they had valued the service and estimated the opportunity cost of the different moves it could have led to approaches to the expected beneficiaries. This could include approaches to business for funding or redistribution of funds from tourist organisations the Council runs.
The other aspect they failed to address in the report is that Leeds Station is the gateway station to West Yorkshire and its offerings. Should it be Leeds Visitor Centre or Leeds and (Partners) West Yorkshire. Which leads to a bigger question should the council be running the service or should it be Welcome to Yorkshire?
Perhaps all of this is in the unpublished review.
Yes, James. I’ve put in an FOI request for a copy of the review so we can see for ourselves if the decision’s as Mickey Mouse as it seems.
It’s a mess about who is/should be doing tourism. Up until Wednesday it was Leeds and Partners doing all of it for Leeds. Now it’s the council and L&P doing separate bits. Meanwhile Welcome to Yorkshire seems to be doing stuff with the Leeds LEP. What could possibly go wrong?
I agree, though while the current location shows we value our visitors in terms of practicality, aesthetically, we haven’t exactly got dressed for guests.
Our train station is the least welcoming of places. I imagine most visitors arriving by train expecting a station befitting the ‘capital’ of Yorkshire (ok, arguably the capital) are very disappointed. Visitors then leave the Visitor Centre into a cloud of exhaust fumes onto the cramped and rather bleak New Station Road.
If we’re discussing the location in terms of usability and practicality, the train station location definitely makes the most sense. However, aesthetically, I can imagine the gallery could offer a much more attractive place to welcome people.
All said, for visitors needing information on arrival to a City (or indeed the gateway to a whole region), practicality and usability are paramount, so it should stay where it is.
We can tidy the place up another day.
What mithers me about the woman by the ticket barriers (she’s nice enough – she always gives me a little wave and follows me with her eyes; I think she’s half in love with me) is her use of the word “elevator”. It’s a LIFT.
Off topic – though I suppose I could (perhaps should) ask at the Visitor Centre – do any of you culture vultures know of a shop (preferably neither vibrant nor upscale) where a chap might acquire a pair of binoculars?
It’s a stupid move, no point even debating it. Them saying they’ll save 50k is just misdirection from the real problem which is L and P salaries and funding. How about abolishing L and P? Save a bit more than 50k that’s for sure.
Apologies for the swerve off topic. To move back on:
Customer convenience should be the overwhelming criterion in a customer service (oh, the naivete).
In favour of retaining the station location: busiest station in the country outside the Great Wen and therefore, presumably, the main conduit for visitors to Leeds. So, optimising customer convenience. Visitors with luggage looking for hotel don’t want to cart same all the way to the Headrow. Easy availability of taxis at both station concourses etc. Close to many of Leeds’ visitor attractions.
Against the station: busy, chaotic, bewildering, get-me-out-of-here vibe (the forthcoming southern entrance might help thin the congestion and bustle a tad and let us hope will be the first step towards some sort of Kings Cross-style transformation); inconveniently narrow egress – especially if folk are carrying/pulling luggage, accompanying infants; horribly situated ticket hall in the way of everything including unassuming entrance to visitor centre; Phil-mentioned terrifying spectre of half-cut stag and hen parties, marauding gangs of Keighley girls, or – if there is an association football fixture – groups of lads bowling manacingly across the concourse growling, “we are Leeeeeeeds”, which at least has the virtue of orientating the newcomer.
Suggested compromise, move out of the station slightly – assuming the Black Prince is sacrosanct (but why?), have a visitor centre on that wide pavement at the base of the Park Plaza Hotel across the road from City Square (where the Jehovah’s Witnesses currently operate) – or requisition one of those dismal, long-empty outlets at the base of the Park Plaza itself and do it up. It’s within easy reach of the station and will give the visitor a foretaste of the glories of Leeds which are denied her/him if her/his first stop is within the station itself (can I get a ticket straight to York, please).
Was having a chat today saying maybe it’s all lipstick on a pig this discussion. When what’s really needed is something much bolder – a sweeping welcome to Leeds not obscured by transport, roads and other barriers. A civic, majestic welcome. Like Huddesfield, Sheffield, Liverpool (to name but a few Northern neighbours who embrace you into their fold as you alight from the station)
Of course this may figure in the long term plans. But in the meantime I agree with Walter, that spit which worked so well for the TDF by the Park Plaza could be a meantime kiosk space. Or better still sort the whole experience out internally so you get a proper Leeds/Yorkshire welcome in the signage, banners, produce, taxis etc.
What you need is somebody with a vision for welcoming people…
Spot not spit
Agree with Playful Emma that this has to be more than porcine cosmetics. Part of a bolder scheme which – and I think this was mentioned under another topic – should include diverting the traffic that currently spews out from Neville Street and Swinegate and tears round the bottom end of City Square on to Wellie Street and Quebec Street. This creates a double moat around the station which is not the most congenial welcome for newcomers to the city (or indeed for the daily commuter). A proper visitor centre in the City Square area should be predicated on removing this traffic menace (redirecting it around the south of the station perhaps)
PlayfulLeeds is right,
When you step out of Sheffield station into the splendour of Sheaf Square you feel you’ve arrived somewhere.
When you step out of Huddersfield station into the splendour of St. Georges Square you feel you’ve arrived somewhere.
Bradford has a disconnect, between its stations and it’s heart – but when you do get to City Park – you do know you’ve arrived somewhere.
but the lost tourist was asking “where is Leeds?” Which is an interesting question to be asking within the centre of Leeds. So where is Leeds? The essence of Leeds, the platonic form of Leeds? well, it’s sort of on Briggate and also at the armouries and also in the Victoria Quarter and also at the town hall… and it’s kind of all of those things stuck together. So perhaps the problem is that the City Centre lacks a centre?
You shouldn’t need a visitors centre to tell you how to get to Leeds from the station, you should walk out of the station and be already there.
Perhaps City Square is ripe for a renaissance?
Personally I would move the visitor centre or abolish it altogether. There is something intriguing about a city which keeps its secrets.
Once I started thinking about this tourism thing I realised the city was on the wrong track doing what everyone else is doing – shopping, arena arts. why not dare to be different.
what should a city with different approach be like?
Mysterious, hard to fathom, unsettling – cities in Africa
The local residents should be unfriendly, hard to communicate with and slightly threatening – invokes personal prejudice
Cities should own up to their failures and difficult pasts – Berlin.
Models:-
Post industrial cities and ruin porn – Detroit, Charleroi, Pripyat
Post conflict cities – Belfast (obvs) Belgrade, Sarajevo
Shock of the new – any city in southern China
Tourism narrative for Leeds – (after Anthony Clavane) City of heroic failures
Videos of Leeds United’s “great games” playing in Millennium square
The triumphant sites of the Leeds Renaissance – North Street Flats, Luminar, Clarence Dock shops, site of Cosmic Cow café – the archaeology of the 24 hour city.
The splendours of the Loop Road – experience the sublime cascading traffic into city square
Bowyer Woodgate walking tour – basically the possibilities are endless and only the boundaries of good taste prevent me form going on.
we just need to be more creative with our tourism offer.
These ideas must be worth at least £160,000 p.a. plus unlimited credit card expenses.
Maybe there is scope for a future topic on what to do with City Square (if this hasn’t been covered previously hereon). It strikes me that the square manages to achieve the strange trick of seeming both cluttered and underdone at the same time. Too much traffic, too much bulkily stolid statuary, wide deserted areas, half-hearted and over-polite attempts at continental-style pavement life, the horridly glowering Bond Court, too many empty fronts, rather apologetic fountains, the same old christmas tree. But apart from that it’s fine (especially the dryads and nereids).
Perhaps, for Sour, the Majestic Cinema could be developed as a “Lee Yobbyer and Jonathan Plankgate Affray Experience” centre with a life-size hologram on the frontage of Ratboy aiming kicks at passers-by whilst admonishing them to use the effing elevator and not the effing excavator. Meanwhile, inside, waxwork effigies of carpetbaggers and one-season wonders from the Ridsdale era mounted on plinths alongside videos of last season’s 6-0 thrashing of Leeeeeeeds United by Sheffield Wendy.
Excellent idea for Majestic Grumpius you are beginning to get my drift. I look forward to your next piece of architectural criticism.
regards
Sour