'Why it's about time the YEP clock tower was given a new lease of life'
The owner of the former YEP clock tower has agreed to clean up the landmark - we’ll be watching 🕰️
They say that home is where the heart is.
For me, it has been that feeling of driving through Leeds City Centre and travelling past the Yorkshire Evening Post clock tower.
No matter how far you go, that landmark looms across the city’s skyline as a constant presence.
It’s a feeling of being back home to the place of familiarity when you pass it as it silently welcomes you back into Leeds.
And I’m not alone. Hundreds of you have reached out to the YEP over the last week to share your stories and thoughts about what should happen to our clock tower.
The one word that kept cropping up, aside from being a landmark, was it provides us with a sense of place; it’s a symbol of being home.
As the landscape changes around it with the arrival of new cranes, buildings and new faces in the city it has stood firm over the decades like a silent guardian.
It is a fixed point in a city that doesn’t stand still.
Over the years it has borne witness to the thousands of people who have passed it every day, those who have grown up in its shadows and those lucky enough to have called it their home in the Wellington Street offices over the decades.
But as the hands of time continue to tick it is showing its age.
The owner of the former Yorkshire Evening Post and Yorkshire Post clock tower has agreed to clean up the “iconic” landmark, after calls from the publications, MPs and local politicians.
The two newspapers jointly launched a campaign last week to clean up the clock tower, which is on a site which has been awaiting a £400m redevelopment project.
The newspapers no longer have any control over the tower or the Wellington Street plot following its sale after they moved to new offices in 2012 but have jointly called for urgent improvements to be made for the good of Leeds.
And this week Doug Friend, director of Prescient Capital, said yesterday: “We will look to undertake a cleaning exercise shortly”.
We’ll certainly be watching as the clock continues to tick on a much - loved Leeds landmark.