Leeds traffic: Business owners slam Leeds council after cancelling £20,000 of city centre contracts

Kay Sloane, 50, and her husband Eric, 46, own Superview Window Cleaning in Leeds.

In a social media post on Tuesday (October 19), the pair told their followers they had made the “difficult decision” to end all of their retail contracts in the town centre.

Kay and Eric said they had made the decision due to the work being “no longer cost effective” – amid a raft of changes to traffic measures in the city centre.

Staff at the business are now “not being able to get near the stores to clean”, the pair added.

The post continued: “We would like to thank all our retail partners for their valued custom and hope they know how grateful we are for the work up to now.

"We also hope that Leeds city Council take a hard look at how they have impacted many small businesses from their recent decisions.

“The good news is we have plenty of room to take on new customers.

"For a truly professional service please get in touch for a free no obligation quote, windows, gutters, soffit, fascias and solar panel cleaning.

"Keeping costs down but service high.”

Speaking to the Yorkshire Post, Kay said they are now “basically a wage down” due to the changes.

“We only launched in July 2021 and this was the bulk of our work originally”, Kay explained.

"We are now concentrating on canvassing for more work but avoiding Leeds city centre completely, we can't get the work done in a timely fashion.

"It would have meant bumping up our costs and the stores wouldn't have agreed, I had tried to increase the cost per store by £2.

"They were not happy and would not have continued.

"Time is of the essence and the climate being as it is we are trying to keep our costs stationary for all, but the vehicle access restrictions made it totally impossible to carry on the contract.

"It basically would have cost us to continue.”

A spokesperson for Leeds Council said: “Unplanned emergency works including the burst water main on the West Street Gyratory and the gas works on Armley Road have created unavoidable additional pressure on our city’s roads this week. The gas works have now been completed and works associated with the burst water main are expected to be completed on Saturday.

“We recognise that major improvement schemes such as City Square and Armley Gyratory can lead to some disruption on the highway network, and we work hard to keep this to a minimum by planning our programme so that schemes do not impact on each other.

“We thank people for their patience and encourage everyone to plan their journeys in advance, either by allowing extra time or using alternative methods of travel. We will be publishing updates on our social media channels and at www.leeds.gov.uk/planahead”.