Leeds is one of the fastest developing cities in England with new office blocks, student accommodation, roadworks and housing all being built at a rapid rate. However, the constant construction is causing disruption amongst the citizens of Leeds and is making the city less appealing on a visual basis.

Popular spots around the city have been hit with development such as the train station, Leeds town hall, Leeds docks and broadcasting tower which is one of the more popular student accommodations amongst Leeds Beckett students. People living in accommodation around the city paying good money to live there are faced with construction going on around them affecting their sleep and day to day life.

Development of the city brings in vast economic growth and opportunity for young entrepreneurs, doctors and scientists but the investment in the high-rise buildings and accommodation could impact the environment in the long run.

Some of the construction work is due to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 with the hopes to make buildings and apartments safer for people living in them and to avoid any further disaster.

It can be seen as a positive for the city as constant development of buildings and roads shows other cities around the country that Leeds is here to improve despite the disruption is may cause pedestrians in the short term.

However, all the cranes and scaffolding sites across the city can be draining to look at with the creative soul seemingly sucked out of a historic city like Leeds.

Leeds city councillor Barry Anderson, who specialises in the development sector, said: “No, I think it shows a busy and thriving city. I think it shows a city that is growing and modernising, and a city that wants to move forward.

“Fine if they were destroying old traditional buildings in order to do it but in the majority of circumstances they are old industrial areas that are being knocked down or buildings that are not fit for purpose, looked ugly and they are being removed and replaced with a more modern architecture so no I personally don’t think it is to the detriment of the city.”

According to an article written in 2023 by The Yorkshire Post, Leeds was named one of the worst cities in the UK for nose complaints coming from construction sites.

This should not be a surprise for Leeds citizens as the council delivered 16,249 homes since 2018 with the number increasing since then because of the council’s ambitions to become the fastest developing city in England.

As a result, Leeds city council received 116 noise complaints and 149 were recorded in 2022. The construction in the centre of Leeds has soared in the previous decade with more development projects coming until 2030.

Anderson had this to say about the development of student accommodations and constant building work, “Now if I lived close to it then I might not feel the same but as someone who sits on the city plans panel, I welcome the developers maximizing the amount of land and trying to concentrate more of the development into the city.”

Anderson also said: “No I think it adds a bit of character to it and it shows a more modern architecture for a modern city, but you could maybe argue that there is too much student accommodation in the centre and it is destroying the landlords business elsewhere but students have a good room with a good bed and that will help students who have maybe left home for the first time.”

Maisie Aspin who is an aircraft engineer at Leeds and Braford has been directly impacted by the construction. She said: “I would say the construction ruins the aesthetic and vibe of the city because there are temporary walls up everywhere, roadworks all the time, I think it takes away from the more classic buildings we have in Leeds I think it makes it lose a lot of the historical value.

“For me personally, I’d say it hinders me from wanting to go outside because of the construction noise and I feel like I am wasting my money on renting a flat in Leeds with all the construction work going on around where I live.

“I would also say, that the hours the building workers start wakes me up because they start early morning and finish late in the evening, so it wakes me up during the weekday.

“I think at the minute it definitely is impacting people’s lives including mine but when the construction work is finished, we will see the benefits it’s just about getting to that point.”

Leeds city council want Leeds to be fully developed in the next decade to stop the feeling of constant construction for the citizens of Leeds because it can be pretty disruptive with noise and inconvenience.

Anderson said: ” I would think within the next 5 or 10 years we could be getting very close to maxing it out and the areas that can be developed so then we would have to think about from a sustainable environmental side has the city grown too much, now that is a wonderful debate we can have, is Leeds as a city growing too much and maybe the growth could go into other parts of West Yorkshire.

“Some of the money can go into other parts and communities elsewhere and that would bring the economic growth up but at the moment Leeds is the engine of the West Yorkshire economy, so it is important that Leeds modernizes what it has got and improves upon it.”

Although Leeds is one of the more populated cities in England with 536,280 people living in the centre, the amount of space available for builders, architects and transport systems is limited as it is a smaller city in size compared to London and Manchester.

Currently, Leeds city train station is under construction and Anderson expects more transport development in the near future. He said: “If we can get a better transport system, that is going to be another thing taking away land as well because if we are building a mass transport system we are going to be needing the land so that we don’t have it running on the same roads as cars and buses so we will have to take land to build the mass transit so in 5 or 10 years we could be constrained because of other activities taking place in the city.”

The land in Leeds is scarce and the more land we take for developing transport systems or student accommodation the less land we will have for other projects like parks or outdoor areas.

As Anderson mentioned before, Leeds could be developing too quickly for its own good as the city developers might be missing out on key infrastructure for young people as times are changing. The city space is limited, and it is up for debate if the money invested into the development of the city is well spent and relevant for the future.

Anderson said: ” Yes, I think we are not looking at the sustainability because it is fine bringing these people in but have we got enough facilities, if the people coming in stay in the city and have families have we got enough schools? medical facilities? because we have plenty of restaurants and pubs but the younger people nowadays aren’t as interested in going out drinking so are we getting enough infrastructure to support this.

“I am not suggesting we turn it into a Dutch like city, but should we have white boulevards you can actually cycle and walk down and share the space together because the space we have got in the city centre is heavily shared between buses, bicycles and pedestrians.

“If we are also building too quickly, what is going to be the environmental damage done to the city at the end of the day because economic growth is good and vital but you might get to the point when you have grown the city as much as you need to and do not need to grow it any further and harm the environment.”

As Leeds is a fast-developing city with a magnitude of opportunities for young people like medical staff and business people, Leeds city council want to focus on innovation as well as development to attract these people into the city resulting in more economic growth.

Councilor Anderson said: ” There are always going to be entrepreneurs, we are always looking to upgrade some of the older buildings and we also need to look at the fact Leeds has got a reputation for innovation, so medical innovation that needs its own area so we can attract jobs to it and that means we can utilize the universities and the brain power that we are attracting to the city with the students who can come up with designing things in order to reduce the effects of carbon, reducing the battery storage, creating quiet buses.

“We need to make sure the jobs we are attracting in the city are well paid jobs and the quality of houses is energy efficient.”

Compared to other major cities in England like London, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, Leeds are wanting to compete to become one of the biggest cities in the world for job opportunity, development of buildings, student accommodation and economic growth.

Despite all the disruption it has caused for people in Leeds having to look at the cranes in the sky, roadworks, drilling and scaffolding, the council want to be a fully developed city and earn its place as the second-best city in the UK.

Anderson said:” I am not aware of a target, but we certainly are competitive with Manchester and Liverpool we aspire to become the second most important city in the country you will never out do London so by attracting in the health works and excellent universities Leeds has the potential to become the second most relevant location in Britain.

“As to how we compare, there has always being competition between Lancashire and Yorkshire no matter what it is in but if truth be told I think we are more competitive with some of the European cities like the Frankfurt’s, Cologne’s we’ll never make up with Paris or Milan but Leeds has the ambition to become a destination people come to so we can generate growth that way as well.”

Leeds Town hall has been closed to the public since 2021 for a major refurbishment project and will not be open to the public until around 2026. This is just one of the many buildings in Leeds under refurbishment and unavailable to the public.

From all the construction around the city centre, Leeds has become a concrete jungle under constant development but from what Anderson was saying, the development is good for economic growth and opportunities but can harm the environment if the council is not careful.

With all the scaffolding around key spots in Leeds, the question remains if Leeds is producing soulless buildings with all the student accommodation or if the development is a necessary step in becoming the second most important city in the UK behind London.

From the train station to Leeds town hall the city is evolving trying to improve the lives of its pedestrians and tourists. Everybody should expect more drilling noise and construction work for the near and distant future.