Is the City of Leicester a dump?

[UniFox21]

1 hour ago, Paninistickers said:

Yeah, but Leamington doesn't have the size or energy of a city. 

 

Listen, I think Leicester is dire compared to equivalent cities, but the point t I made earlier is that, if you know the place and show a visitor the best bits, it can actually come across quite well. 

 

The example I have earlier was we sat in the exchange, busy independent bar in a cool flatiron building with a view of curve, hundreds heading in there for an event...and the Art Deco Athena overlooking us too. It looked and felt good, even to me

 

Edit; thinking of all those punters heading to curve, the difference it would.make to the city nighttime economy if the De Montfort Hall was in the city centre in addition to curve. Pity really. 

 

 

 

 

Can't disagree there. 

 

Every city has a few bright spots, so showing them off to those who don't live here is no doubt great. 

 

Think what could've been had the council invested money into regenerating the city centre

[westernpark]

30 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

 

 

Think what could've been had the council invested money into regenerating the city centre

They have been regenerating the city centre and are continuing to do so.

[Chrysalis]

I think large parts of the City are "dump" material, but there is a few spots that look alright.

 

On the City Centre, its one of the worst City Centre's I have seen.

The pedestrianisation without trams is a bizarre choice, lots of dead zones, buses going down church gate which was one of a few nice roads I liked walking down, there is a few streets or spots in the centre that are nice, but there is a lot of dross that floods it out.  The future I think inevitably is it becomes a combination of student accommodation and night life.  Shopping will move more and more out of the city.  The shires aka highcross is that anomaly which will delay this for several years.  That getting built I think has proven critical.

Bear mind the city is one of the poorest in the entire country so how things are wont be that much of a surprise.  Its location is also industrial primed, we are the furthest city in the country from a coast. 

 

I consider one failure to not take advantage of location to make us much more of a hub for distribution, which according to my dad Leicester used to be massive for, especially on scudamore road.

Edited 1 April by Chrysalis

[kenny]

14 hours ago, Chrysalis said:

I think large parts of the City are "dump" material, but there is a few spots that look alright.

 

On the City Centre, its one of the worst City Centre's I have seen.

The pedestrianisation without trams is a bizarre choice, lots of dead zones, buses going down church gate which was one of a few nice roads I liked walking down, there is a few streets or spots in the centre that are nice, but there is a lot of dross that floods it out.  The future I think inevitably is it becomes a combination of student accommodation and night life.  Shopping will move more and more out of the city.  The shires aka highcross is that anomaly which will delay this for several years.  That getting built I think has proven critical.

Bear mind the city is one of the poorest in the entire country so how things are wont be that much of a surprise.  Its location is also industrial primed, we are the furthest city in the country from a coast. 

 

I consider one failure to not take advantage of location to make us much more of a hub for distribution, which according to my dad Leicester used to be massive for, especially on scudamore road.

On distribution, it has moved to DIRFT near lutterworth. It is part of the councils future jobs strategy to ensure that the county remains a transport hub for the country.

[OntarioFox]

Regarding my earlier point about our city planners lacking imagination, we always seem to chase trends 5 or 10 years after they've already been done to death and ceased to be a unique selling point for a city. We just look at what other places are doing and copy it.

 

The latest would be the boxpark plan off Green Dragon square. Looks lovely and will undoubtedly improve the area and connection from the market to St Martins, but other cities have had theirs for years. Hell, I had fish and chips in Bristol from one at Wapping Wharf this weekend, which opened in 2016. It's the sort of thing that makes you go 'ooh that's nice' once, but isn't a unique thing that makes you want to visit and revisit a city.

 

When we put on events they're often carbon copies of better shows elsewhere - that Lights festival a couple of years back was fun, but it's something Nottingham do on a grander scale with the visitor numbers reflecting that. Another one that made me laugh was the council making a huge song and dance about those inflatable monsters being put up around the centre. Was fun and I thought for a short moment that we'd finally done something unique... Until I visited Manchester a few weeks later and saw the same identical monsters everywhere there too. It was just a company who do it in multiple cities at a time. 😅

 

Beyond that, it's the same old, same old. Slap a wheel up at Christmas, maybe put on a show in Viccy Park once every summer. Wonder why nobody goes to town anymore. Curve was a brilliant development but the way Soulsby goes on about it, you'd think it opened last week, not 15 years ago.

 

The centre has a lot of potential and there are green shoots of recovery. For all the NIMBY grumbles I'm actually really excited for the market redevelopment, the old one was an eyesore and falling to pieces. But my God, there is more to making Leicester an attractive destination than blocking cars and copying other cities' homework.

Edited 2 April by OntarioFox

[RoboFox]

Went out into town Sunday night for a few drinks. 

 

Couldn't believe how dead it was for a Bank Holiday evening. 

[Blarmy]

I’ve moved up North due to woman, and I was keen to show her my old haunts in Leicester. Been a few times and it’s not been terrible but probably won’t bother again. It’s just too quiet, not enough going on and not enough variety of places to visit.  Managed to get one last meal in at the Case  - such a shame that’s shut down.

 

Will stick to Leeds, Sheffield, York, Harrogate etc. for future convenient weekend breaks. They are all far better for shopping, dining, drinking and partying. 

[Langston]

16 minutes ago, Blarmy said:

I’ve moved up North due to woman

 

 

[CosbehFox]

1 hour ago, OntarioFox said:

Regarding my earlier point about our city planners lacking imagination, we always seem to chase trends 5 or 10 years after they've already been done to death and ceased to be a unique selling point for a city. We just look at what other places are doing and copy it.

 

The latest would be the boxpark plan off Green Dragon square. Looks lovely and will undoubtedly improve the area and connection from the market to St Martins, but other cities have had theirs for years. Hell, I had fish and chips in Bristol from one at Wapping Wharf this weekend, which opened in 2016. It's the sort of thing that makes you go 'ooh that's nice' once, but isn't a unique thing that makes you want to visit and revisit a city.

 

When we put on events they're often carbon copies of better shows elsewhere - that Lights festival a couple of years back was fun, but it's something Nottingham do on a grander scale with the visitor numbers reflecting that. Another one that made me laugh was the council making a huge song and dance about those inflatable monsters being put up around the centre. Was fun and I thought for a short moment that we'd finally done something unique... Until I visited Manchester a few weeks later and saw the same identical monsters everywhere there too. It was just a company who do it in multiple cities at a time. 😅

 

Beyond that, it's the same old, same old. Slap a wheel up at Christmas, maybe put on a show in Viccy Park once every summer. Wonder why nobody goes to town anymore. Curve was a brilliant development but the way Soulsby goes on about it, you'd think it opened last week, not 15 years ago.

 

The centre has a lot of potential and there are green shoots of recovery. For all the NIMBY grumbles I'm actually really excited for the market redevelopment, the old one was an eyesore and falling to pieces. But my God, there is more to making Leicester an attractive destination than blocking cars and copying other cities' homework.

Totally this. 

 

Sadly there's no arts or creativity community in Leicester or if there is, it's not been shouting about loud enough. The Leicester BID appears to suffer from a lack of innovation looking from the outside. It's not use accounts such as Cool as Leicester etc to push itself. 

 

The city doesn't make enough of its food options - to try make a niche for itself as a foodie destination. 

 

We don't shout loud enough about the Comedy Festival or the Graffiti Festival - I feel like the Yarn Bomb in Cosby gets more media coverage than that. 

 

The consistent investment or use of investment funds on cycle lines is downright alienating. 

 

Edited 2 April by CosbehFox

[Paninistickers]

4 hours ago, OntarioFox said:

Regarding my earlier point about our city planners lacking imagination, we always seem to chase trends 5 or 10 years after they've already been done to death and ceased to be a unique selling point for a city. We just look at what other places are doing and copy it.

 

The latest would be the boxpark plan off Green Dragon square. Looks lovely and will undoubtedly improve the area and connection from the market to St Martins, but other cities have had theirs for years. Hell, I had fish and chips in Bristol from one at Wapping Wharf this weekend, which opened in 2016. It's the sort of thing that makes you go 'ooh that's nice' once, but isn't a unique thing that makes you want to visit and revisit a city.

 

When we put on events they're often carbon copies of better shows elsewhere - that Lights festival a couple of years back was fun, but it's something Nottingham do on a grander scale with the visitor numbers reflecting that. Another one that made me laugh was the council making a huge song and dance about those inflatable monsters being put up around the centre. Was fun and I thought for a short moment that we'd finally done something unique... Until I visited Manchester a few weeks later and saw the same identical monsters everywhere there too. It was just a company who do it in multiple cities at a time. 😅

 

Beyond that, it's the same old, same old. Slap a wheel up at Christmas, maybe put on a show in Viccy Park once every summer. Wonder why nobody goes to town anymore. Curve was a brilliant development but the way Soulsby goes on about it, you'd think it opened last week, not 15 years ago.

 

The centre has a lot of potential and there are green shoots of recovery. For all the NIMBY grumbles I'm actually really excited for the market redevelopment, the old one was an eyesore and falling to pieces. But my God, there is more to making Leicester an attractive destination than blocking cars and copying other cities' homework.

Exactly this. It's a great post. 

 

They are too frightened to go develop a niche. the Box Park thing as you say,.looks good but it's copy and paste. Same as the calls for an arena. That ship has sailed. 

 

Examples of niche; Why not rebrand the market as Britain's biggest farmer's market? LA style. Make the city a champion of local sustainable produce. 

 

Why not heavily push the smart apartments around curve as a commuter space to London, low rent / high quality / 70 min commute / 5 mins walk to station 

 

Redevelop the Corah space - maybe as a clothing industry hub - and in doing so, connect Abbey Park and the Space park back to the city centre

 

Flood the  Curve area with artists, living and working with subsidised rates and flood a redevloped Corah with clothes designers and shared manufacturing, studio and design equipment

 

Allow super cheap rent and rates in the arcades for independent businesses. 

 

The city centre is dying. It's needs a radical rethink, not a paler version of a Leeds or Manchester 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob1742]

At 57 I’ve seen the City change massively.

 

From vibrant stores like Lewis’s, loads of record shops and shops you’d actually buy your clobber from for a Saturday night.

 

Then larger stores came in, The Shires and smaller stores disappeared but were replaced. It seemed to have a more upmarket feel to it.

 

Then disaster struck, the internet came in and the town changed.

 

Was walking through it yesterday and we looked at what great stores were about, where we used to go and what has replaced the stores of yesteryear.

 

It was always evolving but moving forward, but without question it’s a shadow of what it used to be. It’s not even 20% of what it used to be.

 

Market Street was a high end street, good quality clothing shops, wedding shop, it was absolutely thriving. It’s now littered with awful places with a few decent places propping it up.

 

We have suffered more than a lot of the Cities, but towns like Northampton and Banbury are far worse. 
 

The council are doing what they can, creating squares and making it better, but they can’t take the internet away and bring retail back to life.

 

I just find it really sad that I saw great transformations in our City both retail and also with regards to nightlife. The late 80’s transformation in nightlife was insane, but unfortunately that has dropped like a stone too. 
 

It’s sad that it’s all gone pear shaped, which I didn’t think it would as for decades I just saw positives and loved the positive changes 

[sharpylcfc]

Something needs seriously doing to Granby Street and up near the station, I know they're in the process of the redevelopment of the station but outside the station and the surrounding areas including Granby Street is an absolute state. Got back into Leicester on the train and the walk from the train station to the St Margaret's Bus Station it was horrible to say the least. Homelessness is probably the worse it's been a long time. Redevelopment of the station isn't gonna help they need to focus on the area around the station too. 

Edited 16 April by sharpylcfc

[jonthefox]

This'll cheer the place up.

https://www.bringthepaint.co.uk/

[Parafox]

28 minutes ago, jonthefox said:

This'll cheer the place up.

https://www.bringthepaint.co.uk/

 

The artwork on show is very impressive. 

[jonthefox]

4 minutes ago, Parafox said:

 

The artwork on show is very impressive. 

It is . It's a bit of a coup for the city as well.

[Free Falling Foxes]

Not a contemporary view by any means but I read of a quote from Sir John Betjeman that he made in the 1930s.

He had said of Leicester, ' There are far worse places I would rather live'.

[westernpark]

40 minutes ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

Not a contemporary view by any means but I read of a quote from Sir John Betjeman that he made in the 1930s.

He had said of Leicester, ' There are far worse places I would rather live'.

The bloke couldn’t get into Mosh, he was just bitter.

[fox_up_north]

I really thought the city was on the up about 15 years ago. I thought it was crap when I was in my early teens but it looked to be improving. Then it all just sort of stalled.

[Finnaldo]

My girlfriend lives in Bath Lane and I’d Western side of town I think is pretty decent and has promise. Enough decent pubs to go into, everything off St Martin’s square and the Lanes is a nice red brick area and pleasant to shop/drink eat in. I’d probably end that to the western end of High Street before the side entrance to Highcross.Its a shame Braunstone Gate kind of collapsed in on itself as you’d have a great stretch otherwise.

 

All falls apart after that I feel. Eastern side of the city feels dirty, grotty and half the buildings are sadly dated. Granby street feels more neglected than Mogadishu on its bad days. I’m not someone who has ever felt in danger in town but if you come in on the train after sundown there’s an air of sketchiness on that stretch up to the clock tower that as other pointed out is an awful way to introduce the city. And it’s not an inherently crap street either if the shopfronts and street plan was cleaned up.

[SemperEadem]

Granby Street has always been a bit up and down but the saddest parts for me currently are Market Street and Belvoir Street. Both of them have had their souls ripped away.

[orangecity23]

Granby Street was doomed the moment that Gamestation got turned into a Game and then shut down.

 

In fact all retail was doomed at that point.

 

Give me back my window full of old consoles and 4 for £20 on Dreamcast games damn it.

[sharpylcfc]

4 hours ago, Finnaldo said:

My girlfriend lives in Bath Lane and I’d Western side of town I think is pretty decent and has promise. Enough decent pubs to go into, everything off St Martin’s square and the Lanes is a nice red brick area and pleasant to shop/drink eat in. I’d probably end that to the western end of High Street before the side entrance to Highcross.Its a shame Braunstone Gate kind of collapsed in on itself as you’d have a great stretch otherwise.

 

All falls apart after that I feel. Eastern side of the city feels dirty, grotty and half the buildings are sadly dated. Granby street feels more neglected than Mogadishu on its bad days. I’m not someone who has ever felt in danger in town but if you come in on the train after sundown there’s an air of sketchiness on that stretch up to the clock tower that as other pointed out is an awful way to introduce the city. And it’s not an inherently crap street either if the shopfronts and street plan was cleaned up.

The other week I was walking back to the bus station from the train station I purposely took the route past blunt shoes and back onto Charles Street to avoid having to go past the clock tower because of the amount of sketchy people around. You'd think Granby Street and the surrounding areas would be almost top of the list for improvement in town because that's the first impression of Leicester people get when coming to Leicester on the train.

Edited 18 April by sharpylcfc

[CosbehFox]

2 hours ago, SemperEadem said:

Granby Street has always been a bit up and down but the saddest parts for me currently are Market Street and Belvoir Street. Both of them have had their souls ripped away.

Market Street propped up now by a coffee shop, McDonald’s and a jewellers. That’s it 

[FoxesDeb]

On 16/04/2024 at 20:49, sharpylcfc said:

Something needs seriously doing to Granby Street and up near the station, I know they're in the process of the redevelopment of the station but outside the station and the surrounding areas including Granby Street is an absolute state. Got back into Leicester on the train and the walk from the train station to the St Margaret's Bus Station it was horrible to say the least. Homelessness is probably the worse it's been a long time. Redevelopment of the station isn't gonna help they need to focus on the area around the station too. 

I nearly posted similarly a few weeks ago, we left the train station through the taxi entrance and our first sight was a couple of policemen moving on a group of homeless people from the doorway of Tesco.

 

We only had to walk as far as De Montfort Street, but London Road looked more run down than I remembered it. My husband said it was the first time he'd ever felt nervous in Leicester, we lived there until 2020 but hadn't been back until this year.

[sharpylcfc]

14 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

I nearly posted similarly a few weeks ago, we left the train station through the taxi entrance and our first sight was a couple of policemen moving on a group of homeless people from the doorway of Tesco.

 

We only had to walk as far as De Montfort Street, but London Road looked more run down than I remembered it. My husband said it was the first time he'd ever felt nervous in Leicester, we lived there until 2020 but hadn't been back until this year.

Walking back to the bus station from the train station the other week I took the long route back to avoid gallowtree gate/clock tower as it's really bad round there now. I try to avoid town as much as possible now.

Edited 18 April by sharpylcfc