New Blood

It has been very pleasing to be able to welcome Michelsberg Tailoring and HGP Architects to Calls Wharf in the last couple of months.

Michelsberg Tailoring are a bespoke tailors who provide expert advice, exquisite cloth and garments that are hand cut and sewn in Leeds. The company is run by James Michelsberg who is justifiably proud of his suits and other garments. Go on, why not treat yourself?

For more than four decades HGP Architects has helped shape the built-landscape in the South of England with architecture as inspired as it is hard working, and now HGP are expanding their operation to cover the North of England. With core values such as integrity, professionalism and creativity we expect that this will be a highly successful venture for the company.

The Team will be headed up by Chris Callard with Matthew Salter and David Arnold being essential right hand men from day one with new recruits coming on board very soon.

Now Where Did I Put My Wellies?

Late last year a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of a new report on property development in flood risk areas that had been commissioned by Yorkshire Futures. My friend knew this would be of interest to me as both Calls Wharf and our sister serviced office, The Tannery, are both located close to the River Aire in Leeds.

The report (linked here) speaks of the legacy of industrial and residential property development located near or focussed around water in the Yorkshire and Humber region and therefore the regeneration tasks that we face as a region.

Key points are that in order not to jeopardise the viability of the redevelopment of these areas there needs to be a greater understanding of flood risk (the likelihood and impact over a range of flood events) and from that will come an acceptance of what residual flood risk is acceptable. We can then go about planning and designing developments with appropriate precautions for the remaining risks that are deemed unacceptable.

The implications of this risk based approach is that if there is, or has been, a significant investment in flood preparedness and defences, the degree of resilience measures necessary at site and plot level is greatly reduced. The sharing of risk mitigation between public and private measures and a partnership approach is key to this strategic level of flood risk reduction and requires continued funding.

Where the standard of flood defences is poor the majority of resilience must be provided at site or plot level, leading to heavily engineered measures and design and therefore unsustainable and unviable schemes that developers cannot and will not commit to. The likelihood of good, modern development to regenerate our waterside communities in these circumstances is very unlikely.

It is therefore with a little dismay that I read (link here) that Leeds, a supposed powerhouse of industry and commerce in the North of England yet that has no formal flood defences, has had funding pulled for the proposed £180 million Leeds Flood Alleviation Scheme. Government cuts leading to a 41% reduction in the Environment Agency budget for this region has seen to that.

The implications of a large flood event in the city centre of Leeds is almost unthinkable and this, coupled with the withdrawing of funding for transport initiatives in Leeds, does make me wonder about the Government's commitment to Northern cities.

Fortunately, Calls Wharf and The Tannery have never experienced flooding, even in the extensive floods in 2007, and this post is not really about that. I am starting to wonder, however, about the depth of cuts being made and how our city is suffering or likely to suffer because of them.

Serviced Offices and The Efficient Use of Space

A big benefit of occupying serviced office space is the ability to reduce the amount of space a business physically occupies.

A serviced office building or business centre provides, maintains and manages centralised areas within the building such as the reception, meeting rooms, circulation space, kitchens, toilets, etc, meaning that a business need only rent the amount of space actually needed to carry out day to day operations. This leaves occupiers free to focus entirely on their business within efficient surroundings.

Clients who have previously occupied more traditional office space are often pleasantly surprised when we are able to space plan their occupation at Calls Wharf and show them that they actually only need to occupy (and therefore pay rent on) half the space that they originally thought. A company who is prepared to really buy in to the efficient use of space model and strip out under-utilised areas can make significant savings in terms of how big their office needs to be.

In these times of running a tight ship this kind of efficient use of space can be very attractive to businesses and is just one of the many benefits provided by serviced offices.

If you would like to explore how much space we could save your business then please get in touch and we will happily carry out a free space planning exercise for you.



  

How Much??

I read in the Yorkshire Evening Post (link here) that Yorkshire's most expensive street to live in is here in Leeds. Research by Lloyds TSB finds that with an average property price of £871,000 Bracken Park in Scarcroft has taken the crown of the highest average sale price in the county.

Unfortunately the owners of Calls Wharf, Bracken Limited, have nothing to do with the houses in Scarcroft, but it is nice to see the name out there.

The findings do, of course, need to be taken with a pinch of salt as we all know that dry statistics never show the full picture, but at least we can brag, with our tongue in our cheek, that Leeds has the most expensive street in Yorkshire. What colour would that be on the Yorkshire Monopoly board? 

Ice Ice Baby

Now I know that we are all probably sick and tired of the snow and the cold weather and the disruption to our everyday lives that this causes, but today was a new benchmark.

I arrived at Calls Wharf this morning to find the River Aire frozen solid from bank to bank. The ice started at Leeds Bridge and went all the way down to the Millennium footbridge.

I've never known this before and it is a quite impressive and beautiful site. Was I tempted to get my ice skates out? No! It was nice to behold for five minutes or so, but then I retreated to the warmth of Calls Wharf for a coffee! 

Leeds CyclePoint

After having a bit of a moan in my previous post about a lack of joined up thinking on transport strategy in Leeds, I was happy to see the opening of Cyclepoint, located immediately opposite the main entrance to Leeds Train Station, a few months ago.

The idea of CyclePoint is to provide a manned, secure premises to store bikes, that also has retail, repair and rental facilities as well. The facility is located right at the point that it is needed, i.e. at the train station, so that people can catch the train into the city centre and then use a bike for the next part of their journey.

CyclePoint is a well established concept in other countries in Europe, particularly Holland, and I think is a great idea. If I was located at our sister serviced office, The Tannery, on Kirkstall Road, I would be faced with the choice of driving in my car or catching the train into Leeds and making my way back out onto Kirkstall Road. The distance from the train station is not great, only about a mile, and it takes about 15 minutes to walk, but I would be more than happy to have a bike stored at Cyclepoint and cycle which would take around 5 minutes. It is not far enough to build up a sweat, or warrant donning cycling gear and is a great way of getting around quickly.

I'm not saying that I would do this every day, the Yorkshire weather would make that impossible, but the fact that CyclePoint exists and is handy and relatively cheap (storage ranges from just over 30p per day for an annual ticket to £1 per day for a "one off") means that I would use it.

The additional benefit of having an established retailer run the show (CyclePoint is run in partnership with Evans Cycles) means that if one needs a quick repair, or to buy a new inner tube, or just a bit of advice, it is all available on site.

I hope that CyclePoint proves to be a success. The theory is good and the building looks great after it's refurbishment. My worry is that the weather during the winter months and concerns about cycling through a city centre that is busy with traffic will put people off.

Leeds City Council and Car Parking - Short Sighted or Hidden Agenda?

I read with interest about the decision by Leeds City Council to take enforcement action against a number of "temporary" long stay car parks located just to the south of the city centre, forcing them to close and meaning 2,500 fewer commuter car parking spaces in Leeds.

The action has been taken by the planning department of Leeds City Council and has been upheld by an independent planning inspector and so clearly is correct as far as planning legislation goes. Fair enough - the car parks do not have planning consent to operate and so should be closed.

However, it doesn't take much thought around the subject to suspect either a (not very well) hidden agenda or a lack of foresight, or more probably a mixture of the two.

The Council seem to suggest that users of the car parks are people who work in the city centre of Leeds and that there are plenty of other spaces for them to use in city centre car parks. Are they the spaces in the higher priced, Council owned car parks?

There has also been mention of the need to reduce car usage, whether from a congestion or environmental point of view and withdrawing easy car parking opportunities may help this. However, in order to reduce car use we need viable alternatives in the form of good, cheap, reliable public transport. Park and ride only works if commuters know that car parks are safe, free and that the hop onto public transport into the city centre is a short one that. No one will use a system where they have pay a fortune to park, wait around to catch a bus that only leaves every half an hour, takes an age to get through congested streets and then spend all day worrying that their car will damaged or stolen when they return. We see schemes for trams and trolleybuses suggested and then not happen.

Excuse me whilst I roll my eyes at the inability of our local politicians to actually deliver a joined up, workable transport strategy for our city that will help move Leeds forward and instead decide to force a few small car parks to close.

A report and lively discussion about this can be read here.

At Calls Wharf we cater for the car user, being located on the inner city loop with easy access from all areas of the region and with on site car parking available. We also cater for the public transport user being less than a five minute walk from the train station and the bus station.