Early plans for Leeds city centre park to go before councillors

Early detailed plans for part of the former Tetleys Brewery site, which would include a brand new city centre park, are set to go before Leeds City Council’s influential city plans panel for comments later this week.

It follows a meeting in December 2018 when the 16-acre Brewery Site development, set to include office blocks, 850 homes, hotel facilities with around 400 rooms and a five-acre urban park, was granted outline planning permission.

The latest plans refer to the office blocks and city centre park parts of the outline plans, in what is known as a pre-application. This is an early version of more detailed blueprints expected to be submitted for full approval later this year.

A two-hectare “city park” would be divided into five areas. These would include “The Tetley Triangle” – a hard-surfaced events space for concerts, outdoor cinema and outdoor cafe space. It would be “60 per cent” the size of Millenium Square, a stepped amphitheatre would also be nearby.

Another area known as “Theatre Gardens” would be to the east of the site, which would feature “modern ornamental and sensory gardens for quiet enjoyment”.

The “Central Park” would include “significant parkland”, including grassed areas and trees, water feature, play area and a grassed mound. It added that it would be slightly smaller than Lovell Park, but would be flat.

In addition to the park, the site will also feature two six-to-eight storey red brick office buildings with a total of 28,000 sq metre floor space.

A council report into this phase of the plans states: “The proposals present the next step in the delivery of a 21st century, child-friendly, bio-diverse City Park for all generations, significant new pedestrian and cycle connections, the delivery of major office employment space in the South Bank, and the first phases of the regeneration of the Tetley Brewery site, which closed almost 10 years ago.”

Councillors on the panel are expected to give their opinions on the site at a meeting of the authority’s city plans panel on Thursday, June 27 – no final decision will be made.

Full plans are expected to be submitted to the authority in due course.