Residents from across Leeds are coming together with their own shared vision for the future of the south side of Leeds city centre.
Leeds Sustainable Development Group (LSDG) is a network of individuals who share a commitment to their city and want to work together to make it better. They're hoping their collective thoughts can help put together a way forward for the South Bank area of the city, which the council is aiming to redevelop over the coming years with a new business community and city centre park.
LSDG's first objective is to create a self-sustaining, open and inclusive forum to enable everyone in Leeds to say what sort of place they want to live in, to put forward ideas and to participate in developing proposals and options at a stage when it can make a difference.
The second objective is to contribute to the promotion of a wide-ranging debate, bringing together the city, its practitioners, academics, thinkers, designers, researchers and others who have an interest in, or wish to make a contribution to, the creation of a shared vision for Leeds.
Discussion of ideas
A public meeting was held last week on The Calls which saw about 40 people discuss ideas and make observations about the area and how they wanted to live in a Leeds of the future - and people are being urged to join in the debate online at LSDG's website.
One of the contributors to LSDG, David Lumb, says the group - which doesn't have members but contributors - is working towards a shared vision for the sustainable future for Leeds. He says a way forward following the meeting could be to form a Leeds Sustainable Development Corporation or even a South Bank LEP (local enterprise initiative). He said:
"The next step following the meeting is going to be hard work. I don't know what this part of Leeds is going to look like and what we're trying to achieve isn't really about that, it's about how the people of Leeds are going to live in the future.
"We need to sit back and contemplate on what's been said and apply a bit of academic rigour to some of the ideas that have been put forward. We need to look at what sort of mass and quantity of development we can get into the area and make it sustainable and we hope to work with the council on that. We need to consider what is economically viable.
"There needs to be a coming together of academics, professionals, civic people and 'normal' citizens who do not have an agenda but know how they want to live in Leeds. We're not a lobby group and we're not looking at the next four weeks or the next four months, we're looking at something for the coming 20 years and beyond."
Lumb said there will be more consultations, workshops and public meetings in the future and urged people to go to the blog and comment.
To promote a debate LSDG has written and circulated a leaflet called 'Leeds City Centre South: the long view' which encapsulates the work being done by the initial contributors to the LSDG for the proposed second Leeds City Centre Vision Conference in October.
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