Last week I read about a report that said our town centres are being turned into standing room only zones. Streets are being stripped of public seating and older people are not going shopping because they can’t find anywhere to take the weight off their feet. This could explain the “retirement consumption puzzle” the report claimed, why the older you get the less you spend even though you have more in the bank. Old people would spend more if there were more places to sit. Benches are good for business.
I wasn’t entirely convinced. Perhaps older people lash out less on clothing because they just aren’t interested? I’m not sure having a comfy sofa in Superdry would tempt many more pensioners to purchase a parka, and I think there are better arguments beyond the cash benefit to retail for decent public seating in a city centre.
I had the report in mind the other day when I had to walk through Leeds. It was lunchtime, bright and sunny, cool but not uncomfortable in the open air, and the city was full of people shopping, eating, gawping and plain old milling around. I wasn’t in any rush and I started to take photos of public seating. Nothing planned. Just random snaps of benches I happened upon, mainly to see how many. how they were being used, and by whom?
Leeds has plenty of benches in the city centre. This is standard issue Leeds style.
Remind you of anything?
Any bench is better than no bench, so there must be competitive pressure on space in the busiest spots if I’ve read the report right?
This is Briggate on a busy day
And this the other side of the street.
Less than half the benches were occupied, and mostly only by one person.
Around Albion Place there are more bags than bums placed on these monumental edifices
And these guys choose to stand and eat their pizza rather than avail themselves of the stoney seating.
Most of the public seating in the city centre is provided by the council and is designed for ease of maintenance and also to put off undesirable people from using it undesirably. Though the message doesn’t always get through to everyone…
And some seating is frankly inexplicable. This one recently got a five star rating in the Dalek Independent Guide to Leeds; “cold, hard, unforgiving… after a busy day destroying planets and exterminating life forms this is the ideal place to put up your plunger and park your shiny shell, you’ll feel right at home.”
And this, a merry-go-round, minus the merry.
This is on Vicar Lane and a couple of months ago when the council was putting down the spanking new paving I had hoped this bench would get the boot. It didn’t even get a paint job. What will the people going to Victoria Gate think!
Still, better than this… these are benches, right? A bit high, perhaps.
No sign of a bench on the wide street facing Victoria Gate
And certainly nothing inside – though I haven’t looked in any of the shops yet. Does anyone know if you can have a sit down in John Lewis?
There are a couple of benches on the street opposite the market, both angled towards the entrance of Victoria Gate (get the message? Get off your arse, go buy something you lazy sods!)
Over the other side of town there is actually a place where the benches aren’t made of girders and riveted to the ground
There’s even some colour – shocking, isn’t it!
And you can even move them so you can face your friends (or turn away from them if that’s the mood you’re in.) It’s almost like they trust us.
I walk by these most days and they are probably the most used seats in the city. People seem to like sitting here, and it can’t have much to do with the surroundings (I’m sure Trinity won’t mind me saying that these seats aren’t in the most photogenic spot, at the bottom of the building right beside the elevators.)
Sometimes anywhere will do when you have to sit down.
On the edge of the city centre there’s the oddly named Central Square just opened and it has some very jolly wooden seating inside
And lots of decent ledge seating outside – though I notice people having a sandwich here are choosing the traditional seats with a back rest.
Around the corner there’s another new development, Wellington place, with some traditional wooden benches and tables.
There’s even a photo on their website of the plaza filled with (suitably branded) deckchairs, which is always a winner for me.
What they don’t show you is this… they look like something reclaimed from a Twelfth Century Monastic Order of flagellants.
There’s a Mexican street food van here doing great trade – I counted almost 30 people chatting in the queue when I passed by – but, not surprisingly, none of the punters were sitting together here to eat.
But that isn’t the worst seating in the city.
This is the worst seating in the city. It’s so bad I’m almost tempted to think it was intended as art.
These things look as if they were punched out of the walls of the building opposite to make the window spaces.
So far they don’t appear to have been discovered by skateboarders. But they are asking for it.
What I notice most looking at these photos now is how much public seating there is in Leeds, and how many old people seem to be out shopping and not using them.
Is it because the are in the wrong place, or the wrong type of seating? Why can’t we try more seating, and a greater variety… I’d like to see some deckchairs please.
Seating in the street – some slight reflections
Interesting article Phil which merges some observant aesthetic and sociological approaches but maybe there are still some aspects of seating to explore. For example, other than allowing people to sit down do these objects have any other function in the urban environment? What historical references do the “seats” draw on in their design? Archaeologically where do todays seats reside in the historic layering of the city space? There is also a social welfare aspect which is picked up in the other seating article on Crossgates.
Let’s deal with that one first. Organizations like Leeds BID have always faced a dilemma when dealing with consumer behavior between “moving them on” i.e. getting people into as many shops as possible in the shortest possible time to increase the spaces capacity to take in more and “getting them to stay” i.e. providing enough attractions and resting places in order that people stay longer and hopefully in the end spend more. So, the decision to have more or less seats reflects this paradox.
Following on, you are both wrong and right about seats in Victoria Gate – wrong because there are seats outside cafés but right because they are not free to use and yes can sit in John Lewis if you use the café.
Of course, even though some people may need to rest for longer periods, this may or may not be deemed desirable depending on the position you adopt on the seat or bench, vertical OK – horizontal not OK. Seats maybe OK window ledges not OK and that’s back to the old question about spikes on the window outside McDonalds.
Anyone smoking as in your first image will be seen on CCTV and a city centre community health worker dispatched to give anti-smoking advice and a referral to the Leeds Cessation Programme.
Maybe the increased number of seats in Briggate reflects BID’s awareness of the power of the grey pound and have tailored their environment accordingly. Of course, if you are talking Briggate or the Victoria Quarter then these areas might be used only by the most affluent older person who is likely to be fitter and therefore needs less seats. Have they in fact over provided as your images suggest?
For Crossgates, the opposite applies this is not an area for luxury purchases and high net wealth pensioners but perhaps many more older people with mobility impairments looking for basic necessities so as you correspondent points out correctly more seats are needed.
Surely Leeds Open Data Institute can enlighten us here (and Tom Forth provide a suitable infographic) of how far the average older person in each area can manage before a break is needed. With this data, Leeds City Council’s or Leeds BID could step in to meet the optimum requirement with the greatest efficiency.
What does the standard Leeds bench remind you of- you ask?
To me an old fashioned park bench. If this is correct you can make what you like of this comparison – some kind of bucolic nostalgia? an oblique refence to Leeds Green City? a sympathetic response to our Victorian heritage? Whatever – at least it is easy to hose down by the Street Rangers.
One or two others of your snaps look like the seating has come from the park too perhaps the Parks Department had a few spare. One has some sort of planter but what is really missing is the tree. Another seems to have a telegraph pole instead.
Talking of trees and some which didn’t survive – do you remember when Albion Place had trees in planters – it was never going to work was it? But it was all part of some Nineties effort to promote the city as Destination Leeds with a 24- hour café culture.
Now the I think classically referenced benches you show arrived after the trees disappeared but just shame you they are the work of the famous public artist Peter Yarwood who has done similar work in other places.
Of course, whether they are practical or attractive is in the eye of the beholder and potential user but all this is not really the point they are there to give “ambience” and help to create the brand.
Your shots of Land’s Lane remind me that this too was part of Destination Leeds. I recall the seating was little better than you get now but at least you got metal “something or others”, coloured lights I recall, and a water feature which was often filled with soap.
I thought Punishment Park when I saw the new arrivals.
You could have said more about the dogs.
Going on with aesthetics for a moment – sorry but the purple effort in Trinity said to me urinal.
The concrete block I assume is on loan from the City Art Gallery maybe a work by Carl Andre or Donald Judd
I think you miss the point with a couple of your images which are arguably not at all or only partly about seating e.g.in the shot of empty seats in Briggate – here you are more into the concept of the Resilient City. Look at the seats and post together in front of a bank isn’t this ram raid protection.
Likewise, with the blocks outside Victoria Gate -although I am slightly confused here because I think when I went the blocks were the other way around.
Finally, you missed my personal favorite location – the stone blocks outside the West Yorkshire Playhouse.
Here you can sit all day contemplating the meaningful lives of all those civil Servants in Quarry House, imagining Judith Blake with search lights behind speaking to the assembled masses about the success of the 2023 Capital of Culture bid, all the while picking the bird shit from you hair from the roosting starlings in the trees.
Happy days