Highways Towers Killingbeck: Demolition finally underway of decaying Leeds tower blocks on York Road

Highways Towers, on York Road in Killingbeck, are being taken down and replaced with a new social housing development, which Leeds City Council has pledged will be cheaper and more energy efficient. The two 10-storey blocks were put up in the 1960s – and in 2019, the council declared they had reached the end of their lifespan.

Tenants of the 120 flats were rehoused after extensive consultation and paid a “significant sum”, the council’s chief officer for housing, Gerard Tinsdale, said. Demolition was provisionally set for December 2022 but a planning application seeking permission for the job was submitted after the new year.

Last summer the dire state of the towers from within was revealed on social media by an urban explorer known as ‘Chaotic Footsteps’. They said the flats had been “trashed” and “left to decay” and released pictures showing damage to walls, bathroom units and light fittings.

Now, nearly four years after the tenants were relocated, demolition is underway. There is no set date for its completion yet.

Councillor and executive member for housing Jessica Lennox said: “We are committed to investing in good energy efficient homes in Leeds – these [towers] have reached the end of their life. They're built in the 1960s. They're not designed to go further than a certain amount of time.

“The decision was taken to demolish because the cost of retrofitting and renovating and bringing these homes to the standard that we would want to have was going to be greater than demolishing and building new good energy efficient homes.”

The decision to mothball the towers blocks was made after the council ruled that refurbishing them would have been too costly and “intrusive”. This is one of the first bigger projects the council is taking to improve social housing, but there are plans to renovate five other blocks in the city.

Gerard added: “We have got a heavily invested capital programme – we invest rather 80 million pounds a year in our stock and a significant amount of that goes to improve energy efficiency in our high rise block. That covers things like better energy efficient heating systems and insulation in blocks as well which obviously helps issues such as condensation and damp and mould.”

Not only does Leeds City Council want to create more energy efficient social housing, it wants to make more social housing and to make it more affordable. Gerrard said the maximum rent of the new properties will be roughly 80 per cent of their market value.

Gerard said: “We're hoping to provide more units than we’re taking out. We're taking down 120 flats in the two blocks and we're currently working on what we can fit, but we hope to have something in the region of 180 plus new homes here. So we’re not only will providing more energy efficient, cleaner, better homes, but we're increasing numbers to help with people are desperate for social housing in the city.”

Coun Lennox added: “That's been a key pledge of the administration over the last number of years as well – that we would go invest in and grow the social housing in the city and this is part of that.”