Leeds: University life, shopping malls and restaurants

Leeds has economically grown during the last couple of years due to its focus on financial and legal services. The latter also is the cause of the serious economical problems that is currently suffering due to the global financial crisis. The Leeds official publications claim that Leeds is the largest financial and legal centre in England outside London. Its geographical location is strategic and key for its development, as it is located in the middle of the main UK island and its rail station has services from and to almost all main cities in the UK, including a 2-hour fast service to London. In terms of communication, be aware that may take some time for you to get used to the broad English language spoken by the locals.

Leeds has two large universities: the University of Leeds and the Leeds Metropolitan University (the MET). Thousands of students from England and other countries around the world settle in Leeds every year to attend any of its universities. The Leeds official publications claim that this city has the largest university life in England outside London. Students make Leeds a lively city. In fact, if you stay in the city during University holiday periods (June, July, August) you will have the feeling that you are alone in the city. Especially if you live in Hyde Park or Headingley, the most popular student areas.

Leeds has been one of the victims who bet on the real estate and financial boom and is currently suffering the bad consequences of the global crisis: half-built brand-new apartments, large brand-new office spaces completely empty, shopping malls interrupted, and so on. However, Leeds is a good place for those who enjoy the quiet life, green spaces, and cold weather with a little bit of sunlight (the winter temperatures last from September to May).

All its offices, business, stores and restaurants are concentrated in the city centre. If you walk away 20 minutes from the city centre you will notice that almost all the city is residential, flooded with its particular orange brick houses with black shed roofs. On large neighborhoods, you can find two blocks of stores, with a superstore, coffee shop, fast food restaurant and that’s it. For a shopping and dining evening, you have to go to the city centre, or to the White Rose Shopping Centre, on the outskirts of Leeds, close to Leeds United stadium. A weekend in Leeds is more than enough to visit the whole city and its main points of interest, so if you are planning to visit Leeds as a tourist destination, we don’t recommend booking more that one night hotel. Some of its main attractions are the Kirkstall Abbey (ruins of an old abbey) and the Royal Armories (museum of armor and weapons from different history periods, it really worth visit it), at Clearence Dock, on the Aire river area, near the city centre. Clearence Dock is the modern area of the city, with brand-new buildings, in contrast to the rest of the city that is very ancient, full of typical Yorkshire buildings.

If you are going to live in Leeds for a long period, we recommend you to consider buying a car because the public transport is expensive and not very good. To move around the city you can find only buses with bad frequency. All of them pass through the city centre, so if you are somewhere outside the city centre and you want to reach another place outside town, you will have to take more than one bus. This situation plus the poor frequency of the services and the expensive fares, make driving a car a more convenient and cheaper choice. When you evaluate an apartment rental price we recommend taking into account transport costs, since the 100 pounds you can save living outside the city, will be worthless because higher costs on public transport. If you want to travel to nearby cities, the expensive train fares also make a car a better choice. For example, although traveling in the fast train you can reach London in 2 hours, the one-way ticket price is roughly 80 pounds. So if you want to travel to London using the fast train, we recommend planning the trip in advance. You can get 10 pounds one-way tickets to London if you book online one month in advance. The government encourages the use of public transport, but their policies are contradictory: the public transport is extremely expensive (rates have risen this year) and the services are getting worse (frequencies have been decreased and some services have been suspended).

Will Leeds meet your expectations in terms of a nice place to live, work and/or study? It will depend on your age and your lifestyle. For a young student looking for a lively city to spend some years studying in one of its universities is the ideal place: parties every day, lot of pubs and clubs, student neighborhoods, good quality universities, cheaper than London, make Leeds an excellent place for students with good value for money. For adults, is a quiet town that offers good life quality due to its wide big parks offer, as Roundhay, Temple New Sam and Woodhouse Moor (better known as Hyde Park, famous for its student life). However, the cultural offer is very poor. If you have completed your student period and are looking for a city with a wide job alternatives and a lot of things to do, Leeds may not be the best option and you should consider other larger cities like London or Birmingham. Although London is more expensive, you should know that you will earn higher salaries there for the same job. So if you get the same type of job, economically talking the place where you are going to live will not make the difference. As an example, my colleagues located in London earned about 25% more than me in the same job position and on the same company.

In upcoming entries, I will delve further on some issues of this nice city.