The Sunday Times Best Places to Live Guide 2022: Why Leeds deserves its recognition as the best city in the north according to city centre expert Jonathan Morgan

Following the announcement that Leeds city centre was named as one of the best places to live in the north of England in the annual Sunday Times Best Places to Live Guide, city centre expert Jonathan Morgan explains why the city deserves to be recognised.
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Whilst subjectivity will always play a part in the ’best places to live’ debate and, in spite of the fact that I live in Leeds city centre and have plied my trade here for the last 25 years or so, it’s hard to argue against its selection by The Sunday Times as the best city centre to live in the North and Northeast.

It has been a long and slow journey back from the unwanted and entirely unfounded headlines of the early noughties which painted a grim picture of a city overflowing with empty apartments and devoid of culture.

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Little gems of positivity were dispatched to the undergrowth and occasional sorry tales of failure, such as the ‘Supertram’ debacle, dominated.

City centre expert Jonathan Morgan on why Leeds deserves to be named as one of the best places to live in The Sunday Times Best Places to Live North and Northeast guide.City centre expert Jonathan Morgan on why Leeds deserves to be named as one of the best places to live in The Sunday Times Best Places to Live North and Northeast guide.
City centre expert Jonathan Morgan on why Leeds deserves to be named as one of the best places to live in The Sunday Times Best Places to Live North and Northeast guide.

We have, for a long time, been the only city outside London to have resident opera, theatre and ballet companies; our diverse and resilient economy is widely understood, our universities attract over 60,000 young people a year, our retail and leisure space is nicely balanced, we have a railway station which will deliver you to London in around 2 hours, a regional airport which connects directly to most European cities and, an hour’s train ride away, an airport which connects with the rest of the world.

A number of things have clicked in Leeds in the last few years.

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The arrival of Channel 4, whilst fairly modest as an office requirement, has led to a new wave of interest from a host of related business from film makers to studio providers and it is this cluster effect which holds most promise.

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The impact of Channel 4’s arrival has already led to the creation of an ITV news studio at Brewery Wharf in the last few weeks from where the Channel 4 news is now broadcast live.

At the same time, the Government’s devolution agenda is having a similar impact - as well as the massive GPU building at Wellington Place, the National Infrastructure Bank has opened in Leeds and there are further requirements from the Government including the Department for Transport, the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority and the National Infrastructure Commission.

All of these create relocation opportunities which showcase what the city has to offer to a much wider audience.

Work on the city centre infrastructure has forged ahead in the last few years and the impact of fewer cars, improved bus access, wider pavements and more greenspace is already evident through a number of significant projects, including a new City Park- the city centre is, quite simply, a much nicer place to be.

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At the same time, there has been significant growth in the number of people choosing to live in the city centre and whilst some doom-mongers were determined that Covid would bring an end to City Living, the very opposite has been true, with record numbers renting and buying ever since the industry opened up again.

It’s fair to say that we have never before experienced such a long period of sustained rentals demand and, following a very tricky period after the first lockdown, when the agency industry simply couldn’t function, rents have been growing and are now reaching levels which are more comfortably in tune with the profile of the professional working population of Leeds than they have been historically.

It’s difficult to capture the essence of the city’s journey from the ‘empty flats capital of the North’ to the ‘best city centre to live in the North and Northeast’ and to identify those things which are particular to Leeds and are not simply reflective of national or regional trends.

As a long term advocate for the city, I’d like to think that we are finally learning to cast off our rather irritating tendency to constantly under-state, choosing instead to accept and enjoy the fact that all of the good things others have to say might actually be true.