SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

About eight years ago at the bottom of Templar St. all the business around there were given notice that they had to move out to make way for a large shopping development that would include a John Lewis store. My brother in laws brother had a tailoring factory on the corner of one of the streets leading on to Templar St. The Council found him premises on Roseville Rd. moved him lock, stock and barrel . plus all the other businesses, mainly Chinese were also moved. Then for what ever reason John Lewis is now over what was Millgarth Police Station. Maybe this has been discussed on here, if l so please point me in that direction. My Relative still does not know the full story but is very pleased to have been moved from an antiquated building to a one story modern main road position. The cost of the altered operations must have been colossal to the taxpayers of Leeeds.

As I have pointed out on the festive lights thread, the temporary new look, has robbed us of the search facility. There will be at least one thread that mentions this possibly including Leodians excellent photography timeline of the development.

In the temporary absence of search. The now named VictoriaGate development http://www.victoriagate.co.uk/ was initially on a much grander scale and I believe also intended to demolish the northern bookend on Eastgate and beyond too. However the credit crunch and associated recession delayed the original project and I think it was downsized to kickstart it again (I can't recall whether the remainder is still on the backburner as a Phase II). At least we haven't ended up like Bradford with a hole in the ground for 10 years but a lot of empty buildings is not much better.

On a side note I was pleased to see John Lewis and the developer Hammerson commit to training 1000 locals to fill jobs at the development http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-34472569

Thanks Tyke Bhoy, will have a look when things return to normal.

Here's the main thread from 2010:

http://secretleeds.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2714

It's possible to search this site by putting into Google the following:

site:secretleeds.com "search term" [in this case, "John Lewis" was the search term]

ETA: By the same method, here's where the initial plans were discussed:

https://secretleeds.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=297

And the Leeds City Council planning document from 2005:

http://www.leeds.gov.uk/docs/FPI_EAH_00 ... %20SPD.pdf