Aire Park Leeds: Meet the man leading the multi million pound project set to transform the city centre

“If someone had said to me ten years ago, ‘do you fancy doing this in Manchester?’ I would have bitten their hand off, because it's a chance to really make a difference somewhere, but to be given the chance to do it in my home city, it doesn't get any better than that.”

The Leeds Aire Park project, which has been estimated to be worth around half a billion pounds, will see hundreds of new homes built on the South side of the city centre, along with thousands of feet of office space and new retail space, centred around a two-hectare city park.

After accepting the role of head of development north at Vastint UK around six years ago, Schofield has been heading up the project in the city he was raised in.

The youngest of eight siblings, Schofield grew up in a backdrop of industrial strife, with early memories of power cuts and scarce opportunity for jobs.

“I'm grateful for what I had. It wasn't very much, but I made the most of it and I enjoyed it,” he says.

“My parents had no money to speak of, but they were working people. They worked hard, but didn’t have a lot to show for it, so I wasn’t going to be tolerated being sat at home doing nothing.”

“I remember being a young lad, and I got the bus into Leeds and must have walked around every stall in Kirkgate market twice asking if they had any Saturday jobs.

“They all said no – that was the nature of the world we were living in – but it was character building. Leeds was a different place back then, and it wasn’t thriving like it is now.”

A number of jobs followed for Schofield in his youth, including a short stint as a milkman’s assistant, which ended with him being undercut by two younger people willing to work for less than half his wage.

“When I was in my early teenage years, I started to think about what I might do when I was grown up,” he says, reflecting on his first steps in his career.

“I had a brother who was a bricklayer, and one who was a joiner, and my father worked at the coachbuilder Charles H Roe, near crossgates. They were all honourable blue-collar working fellas, who drew a wage, but I wanted a bit more than that. I knew I wanted to further my education.”

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This, Shoefield notes, took a detour when he decided to join the army around 1984, with plans of becoming a field surveyor. He left, however, just six months in, and would soon enrol at Nottingham Polytechnic, with a view to becoming a site engineer.

A career with various contractors followed through the 1990s and 2000s, where Schofield worked his way up from engineer to site manager to project manager, working through some of the hardest times seen by the industry in recent decades during the 2008 financial crash.

“At the time of the crash, the only thing we had to build was schools, so we went out and built them – and we were glad for it,” he says.

“And it kept a roof over our heads, it wasn't fantastically paid work, but it was solid work and we did it. We learnt a lot.”

It was during the early part of his career, in the mid 90s, that Schofield met his partner, with who he now has two daughters who are studying at university.

Schofield’s work with Vastint began around six years ago, when a friend asked if he wanted to try something new with a company he “wouldn't have heard of”.

“He was right,” says Schofield, “but I was told about the Aire Park scheme and it all sounded too good to be true.

“I looked at the buildings and looked at the areas and thought how much the cost per square metre was going to be. I quickly came to the conclusion that the scheme, as it stood on paper, was probably going to cost the best part of half a billion pounds, so the scale of it was certainly not lost on me.”

A series of interviews followed, finishing with Schofield’s now boss flying into Manchester to meet with him, before Schofield was eventually given the role of head of development north at Vastint, with the responsibility of overseeing the Aire Park project.

“When they offered me the job, I was absolutely honoured,” he says.

I felt a real sense of obligation and commitment to the company to vindicate their faith and trust in me, which other companies in years gone by had not been prepared to give me. That made me super determined to really go at it hammer and tongues to deliver a successful scheme for them.”

Schofield also notes his pride in his association with a project which has the potential to change the face of the city he grew up in.

“We're going to take what is basically a post-industrial, derelict site, which has had any industry cleansed from it, to a space which - when we’re finished in 2032 - will have the biggest inner city new green park in the UK,” he says.

“We’re going to provide all the amenities that people need and create the sort of environment where people will enjoy working and want to be, and where people are going to be living and raising their families.

“The last six years with Vastint, it's not all been beer and skittles and fun, because it's been damn tough at times, and there have been some difficult moments, but I have to say that at this point in my career, looking back, I feel blessed.

“I feel like what I'm doing is not only for the company and for myself, but that it's also going to be for the betterment of the city. Not everybody may agree, and I appreciate that, but I do believe it, and I’m prepared to argue the cause with anybody who wants to enter into a discussion about it.”