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.
Tuesday 21 December 2010
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!
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.
Monday 22 November 2010
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.
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.
Thursday 18 November 2010
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.
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.
Monday 15 November 2010
A Bit of Background
So it is probably worthwhile giving a bit of background as to who, why and what.
Calls Wharf is a building in Leeds that offers a serviced solution to businesses who need office accommodation to operate. The building and the serviced office operation is owned and run by Bracken Limited, a local property company, who have been in business for over 15 years.
Bracken also operates another serviced office in Leeds known as The Tannery which is located on Kirkstall Road and which complements the Calls Wharf operation very nicely. The Tannery offers similar branding and services, but in a different type of location (fringe of Leeds city centre rather than in the centre of Leeds) and therefore we can offer different price options. Bracken is looking to expand the serviced office operation by adding more buildings in more locations to complement our current portfolio.
Bracken is historically a traditional property developer. Up until the Calls Wharf development Bracken carried out numerous commercial property developments and built up a portfolio of commercial property investments. But when Calls Wharf came along it seemed that a serviced centre would work very well and so plans were made and a diversification occured.
The other part of the business is residential development carried out by Chartford Homes, who build new houses in and around Leeds and Yorkshire.
Links to the websites of all of our businesses are on this blog and there will, no doubt, be further posts in the future regarding all aspects of what we do.
Calls Wharf is a building in Leeds that offers a serviced solution to businesses who need office accommodation to operate. The building and the serviced office operation is owned and run by Bracken Limited, a local property company, who have been in business for over 15 years.
Bracken also operates another serviced office in Leeds known as The Tannery which is located on Kirkstall Road and which complements the Calls Wharf operation very nicely. The Tannery offers similar branding and services, but in a different type of location (fringe of Leeds city centre rather than in the centre of Leeds) and therefore we can offer different price options. Bracken is looking to expand the serviced office operation by adding more buildings in more locations to complement our current portfolio.
Bracken is historically a traditional property developer. Up until the Calls Wharf development Bracken carried out numerous commercial property developments and built up a portfolio of commercial property investments. But when Calls Wharf came along it seemed that a serviced centre would work very well and so plans were made and a diversification occured.
The other part of the business is residential development carried out by Chartford Homes, who build new houses in and around Leeds and Yorkshire.
Links to the websites of all of our businesses are on this blog and there will, no doubt, be further posts in the future regarding all aspects of what we do.
And Away We Go...
We have finally got round to setting up our blog, something that we should probably have done some time ago, and this is our first post and is being used as somewhat of a trial.
The idea of this blog is to complement our main website (click here for the link) and to allow us an outlet for more informal posting of material that we feel is of interest, whether that be about our sector of business, our city, or anything else that catches our eye.
Right, off we go.........
The idea of this blog is to complement our main website (click here for the link) and to allow us an outlet for more informal posting of material that we feel is of interest, whether that be about our sector of business, our city, or anything else that catches our eye.
Right, off we go.........
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