Yorkshire Evening Post clock tower demolition would be end of an era for Leeds - Laura Collins, YEP Editor

It was the first time we had encountered the city’s Loop Road as we struggled to work out where to turn off to get to Horsforth.

Driving through the city centre’s one-way system felt like a never-ending labyrinth.

But the one familiar sight on each of our seemingly deja-vu journeys was the striking Yorkshire Evening Post clock tower.

Rising above the flyover it was a landmark beacon signalling to us that we were still trapped in the city centre.

During the journey I remember telling my parents, there and then, that one day I would work for that newspaper.

And after 14 years I’m so incredibly proud to fly the flag for the title I started out on as a trainee reporter all those years ago.

Therefore it was with a real sadness to read that the clock tower will be no more.

Plans have been submitted for it to be demolished to make way for new student homes.

Planning chiefs will discuss next week the early plans to build three towers up to 40 storeys high on the site.

And as part of the scheme the clock tower will be demolished and replaced with “major piece of public art”.

As our cityscape continues to change, losing the eponymous clock tower truly feels like the end of an era.

Perhaps I’m looking at it through rose-tinted glasses with the pride of a city landmark that I have a special affinity to over the years.

The tower will simply become another lost building of a time gone by – like so many others over the years.

They might have been a brutalist product of their time but we can’t forget that they are very much part and parcel of our city’s proud history.

But for me it is also more about what the clock tower symbolises.

And for many of you, I am sure, will have used it as a landmark to say “we’re finally back home”.

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