The decline of Leicester

[Freeman's Wharfer]

There are decent parts of the city center in pockets. But unfortunately there’s been no effort to link them together in a way that means you don’t have to walk through some bad parts to move between them.

[Alfie.meadsy]

On 09/09/2025 at 13:43, bovril said:

Entering Leicester from the East on the A47 is pretty horrific especially as the drive is through some very nice areas. Was quite a culture shock for me when I was like 11 and first going to the football. 

 

City centre isn't too bad and I'm always struck by how cleaner the streets are compared to London. 

I’ve been doing the exact same since I was little. When do you reckon it starts to get bad?

[bovril]

3 minutes ago, Alfie.meadsy said:

I’ve been doing the exact same since I was little. When do you reckon it starts to get bad?

When you get past the traffic lights on the corner by humberstone park. 

 

Quite a few of us plying that a47 route I think

[CornwallFox]

54 minutes ago, Out Foxed said:

course he has. anyone who says no is deluded. 

When I was a teenager in the 90s I wanted to see Leicester basically knocked down and rebuilt. Under Soulsby that's actually kinda been happening. Jubilee Square huge improvement. Cathedral area looks really good. Lots of improvements across the city. Honestly no idea why people are so anti Soulsby. 

[davieG]

26 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

Go back 15-20 years ago and councils had enough money for things like xxx in bloom, mowing next to pavements etc. That's all changed and they're all sinking under the weight of less money and more statutory duties. 

They’d have more money if they didn’t have to spend so much on litter picking and chewing gum removals is very expensive and like the Forth Bridge painting never ending. 

[MC Prussian]

John Ghent popped up in my FB feed today:
https://www.youtube.com/@JohnGhentWozEre/videos

 

Has already done tons of videos on Leicester.

[MattFox]

On 09/09/2025 at 14:39, kenny said:

The issue is that Leicester City isn't doing a great job generally and is hoping to 'spread its failings' further by expanding. So rather than deal with more difficult urban development, it wants the green spaces to push its housing needs into. These are areas that lack the necessary facilities and is terrible for environmentally friendly towns of the future as we are reliant on car use. The outer urban developments that have gone such as Barkby Thorpe or Thorpe Astley are just soul-less collections of houses totally reliant on cars for transport. We recognised the negative effect of urban sprawl in the 1960's but appear to have largely ignored that in the present day and it is getting worse.

 

I suspect that the current policies will result in the city will becoming a slum as more and more people move out into the county. The new 'city centre' will be located at Aylestone Meadows and we will generally drive there rather than using an integrated urban transport system. Its sad that those in charge don't see that they are allowing our city to suffocate.

 

I went to Nottingham a few weeks ago and there is building everywhere. Its like Leeds but smaller. Their council has done a great job over the past 10 years or so. Interestingly, our head of planning used to be at Nottingham City Council and the timelines of that change make a very interesting co-incidence.

 

 

Nottingham has a literal hole in the south of the city centre where the broadmarsh redevelopment was supposed to be

 

And a council in a much worse financial position than Leicester 

 

I wouldn’t be holding it up as a great example 

[MaidstoneFox]

On 10/09/2025 at 23:31, CornwallFox said:

When I was a teenager in the 90s I wanted to see Leicester basically knocked down and rebuilt. Under Soulsby that's actually kinda been happening. Jubilee Square huge improvement. Cathedral area looks really good. Lots of improvements across the city. Honestly no idea why people are so anti Soulsby. 

I can take you back a decade earlier and the construction of St Martin's which made a big difference. There have been changes for the better around High St, the Cathedral area and to some extent the cultural quarter. The flip side to that is Gallowtree Gate, which obviously gone downhill as it used to be the thriving hub. Overall I prefer it now when I go back, but a shame we have lost some of the independent retailers.

 

Similar issues in many places, I have been in Maidstone about 11 years now and there's a noticeably decline here in terms of facilities and shopping as the retail areas get hollowed out. Very little money spend on anything and we basically have a closed down shopping centre all boarded up in the centre of town, that nobody is interested in, beyond more flats, but we are saturated with those already. Should be knocked down to create a green space but there's no money for that.