Watchdog hails new move to
transform
Dock area

Leeds Civic Trust director Dr Kevin Grady said the plans put forward by site owner Allied London could provide an ideal antidote to the problems that have blighted the one-time Clarence Dock since its opening in 2008.

Allied London is creating new public gardens along the main approach to the dock waterfront.

An entertainment programme designed to pull in the visitors that the site has previously struggled to attract includes a street food and vintage festival on July 19 and 20.

And a proposed transformation of the closed Alea casino building into offices for technology, media and telecoms firms should bring hundreds of workers to the area day in, day out.

Construction will be masked by more than 100 metres of hoarding decorated with eye-catching designs by some of the UK’s leading street artists.

Dr Grady said: “If you want to attract people, there has to be day-to-day activity. That’s what Allied London is proposing. Another of the drawbacks of Clarence Dock was that it was a hard-surfaced, concrete environment. Allied London is ‘greening’ the area and giving it a more neighbourly, community feel.”

Dr Grady also said that the once-isolated site would benefit from a number of new developments on its doorstep.

Leeds City College’s £23m Printworks Campus opened in September last year while work is under way on a new £16m Leeds College of Building base.

“Clarence Dock was out on a limb, it was invisible from the city centre’s shopping area,” said Dr Grady.

“It also had derelict or empty sites around it, but now that’s not the case.”