We the undersigned are writing to express our deep dismay at proposals for ‘Aire Park’ put forward recently by Vastint UK, and to protest the negative impacts that ongoing large-scale commercial development is effecting on independent creative spaces in Leeds, particularly in the city centre.

Enough is enough. We believe that the recent closure of The Tetley and Sheaf Street marks a new moment of crisis following the devastating loss of creative spaces over recent years – including Canal Mills, Lady Beck, Screw Gallery and &Model – which is continuing. We understand more venues will announce their closure soon.

The Tetley and Sheaf Street were highly significant cultural venues with enormous reach and successful commercial operations prior to the disruption caused by the Aire Park development, created by Leeds-based initiatives and individuals who made long-term commitments to developing the city’s creative scene. We wonder what the landscape for independent spaces in Leeds will look like by this time next year?

This moment of crisis must be acknowledged and addressed urgently, not least in considering the impacts and legacy of LEEDS 2023 Year of Culture and as the City Council seeks delivery mechanisms for its Cultural Strategy 2017-30. The Strategy sets out a number of aims and objectives, which include ‘[To] value and respect artists and creativity considering both vital to the growth and prosperity of Leeds and ensuring that they are promoted as part of our diverse economy.’ Growth and prosperity for independent creative initiatives are impossible without spaces where we can come together, build communities, learn, invest, and share what we do with audiences and future generations.

The presence of self-initiated, independent and often smaller-scale creative spaces is of fundamental importance to any city’s creative, education and leisure sectors and its economic health. We believe that such spaces contribute to our city in a multitude of ways, including:

● Providing support structures for significant numbers of creative individuals, grassroots start-ups and micro-initiatives – the mainstay of the city’s cultural sector. They generate and sustain communities, networks and spaces for person-to-person skills development and knowledge transfer that are critical to the development of creative practice and careers

● Offering unique opportunities for creatives to reach diverse and intergenerational audiences; for associated professional development; for paid employment as artists and in numerous allied roles including public engagement, marketing, design and catering; and provide essential spaces of friendship, allyship and care for cultural workers and audiences

● Bringing to Leeds dynamic, nationally and internationally significant work that audiences would not otherwise encounter and help to grow the city’s external networks and reputation

● Creating points of local distinctiveness and making unique contributions to the city’s cultural identity, providing content for marketing campaigns and attracting cultural tourists seeking the authentic culture of a place

● Drawing creative students to the city and helping to retain them post-graduation, contributing to the offer of our Further and Higher Education institutions and demonstrating to young people that they can forge viable careers here

● Providing alternative approaches to public engagement, offering informal spaces and facilities as an accessible, often free to access, entry point and counterpoint to more formal settings offered by our major cultural institutions

● Such spaces have little to no financial barriers, enabling everyone the right to access safe, warm and welcoming spaces – regardless of socio-economic background, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, disability or asylum/refugee status.

● In aiding the city to construct a unique and differentiated cultural identity, they further contribute to inward investment by providing employers with an attractive incentive for staff relocating from other cities

● Aiding the city to reach its ‘Best City’ ambition by contributing to inclusive growth and the health and wellbeing of its residents

The proposals put forward by Vastint UK for The Tetley and wider Aire Park site fail dramatically to recognise the value of locally led, independent cultural spaces. Furthermore we fail to see how they align with strategic aims set out by the Council in its current development strategy. We want to make the following points in relation to the specific proposals for ‘The Tetley’:

● The proposal does nothing to advance the ‘inclusive’ intent of the city’s Inclusive Growth Strategy. The activities proposed for the building are wholly commercial, changing its use from an open and inclusive space orientated around culture and community, to one which is inaccessible to those without significant disposable income

● The timeline (‘Site and building history’) included within the proposals erroneously and offensively suggests that The Tetley was a minor blip within the two-hundred-year history of the brewery site. In fact, the opening of The Tetley in 2013 came a full seven years into the organisation’s history (founded 2006) and fulfilled its strategic aim of opening of an independent space for contemporary art in Leeds – one that could move towards a self-sustaining business model and that could also address a major gap in the city’s visual arts provision between its artist-led and institutional spaces

● The proposal sets an extremely worrying precedent, not only in evacuating established cultural infrastructure from a major development area but by entirely ignoring local planning ambitions shaped over many years. The South Bank Planning Statement (adopted October 2011) clearly outlines the city’s ambition for a ‘distinctive, vibrant, well connected, sustainable business and residential community… [that] will help to improve connections to the surrounding communities in the Aire Valley, Hunslet, Richmond Hill, Beeston Hill and Holbeck’. It specifically encouraged uses for the former Tetley Brewery site including ‘Cultural and community uses. These may include uses such as small scale healthcare, childcare or other community facilities. Cultural uses may include galleries, museums or visitor centres.’ Such cultural uses are entirely absent from Vastint UK’s proposal

● Far from ‘safeguarding’ the future of the building currently known as ‘The Tetley’, the current proposals are completely insensitive to this important heritage site, erasing much of the interior features that made it a unique cultural space. The Tetley was lovingly and successfully renovated and safeguarded by Project Space Leeds over more than a decade leading up to 2023, including reopening the central atrium in line with the original 1931 plans – something that will be reversed by these proposals.

● Project Space Leeds worked to secure half a million pounds of public funding from Arts Council England for the capital development of this building, beginning in 2024 in partnership with Vastint. This hard-won funding had to be returned - a waste of time for a small organisation with a fraction of the resources.

● Prior to 2013, the building was never known as ‘The Tetley’ but was built in 1931 as the New Directors’ Offices of the Joshua Tetley & Son brewery. The trading name of Project Space Leeds, ‘The Tetley’ was given to the renovated building upon its reopening in 2013 and significantly developed by the charity with public funding for more than a decade - something that Vastint UK now plan to trade on for private profit

● The proposals as they currently stand make no reference to who will operate the building, or what kind of ‘event spaces’ are proposed. How will these spaces differentiate themselves from, or compete with, existing event spaces elsewhere in the city centre, including those operated by cultural venues who rely on this earned income for survival?

● Vastint UK’s proposal is extremely disappointing in a city already furnished with ample (empty) office accommodation and commercial spaces for eating, drinking and retail. The Tetley and Sheaf Street already collectively offered creative workspaces, offices, and spaces for eating, drinking and retail that were distinctive, authentically rooted in Leeds, and that supported a much wider network of creative freelancers and independent initiatives – generating local economies that were invested back into the city

The closure of The Tetley and Sheaf Street threaten the relationship between Leeds’ creative sector and its centralised processes for development . If the proposals put forward by Vastint UK are allowed to pass unchallenged through our planning system, what messages does this send to an already precarious creative sector?

In writing this, we stand in solidarity with our colleagues in Leeds City Council and acknowledge the impossible choices forced upon local authorities by a hostile politics of austerity since 2010. We want to move forward in positivity and with a shared vision and collective ambition for a city that embraces and rewards exciting and distinctive home-grown creativity, and the long-term commitment of all those who choose to stay and invest in the city.

But we cannot stand by as commercial development threatens to completely push home-grown creativity out of our city centre.

We look forward to progressing this discussion with all interested parties who would like to join a collective conversation on these issues. We would warmly welcome the opportunity to put these points directly to Vastint UK and Leeds City Council, and hope that by working together we can arrive at a more positive vision for the future of creativity in Aire Park.

Copied to:

Hilary Benn MP (Leeds Central)

Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire

Councillor Jonathan Pryor, (Executive Board member for Economy, Culture and Education, Leeds City Council)

Eve Roodhouse (Chief Officer, Culture and Economy, Leeds City Council)

Sarah Maxfield (Area Director North, Arts Council England)

Professor Simone Wonnacott (Vice Chancellor, Leeds Arts University)

Professor Andrew Thorpe (Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures, University of Leeds)

Dr Oliver Bray (Dean of Leeds School of Arts, Leeds Beckett University)

Wieke Eringa (Director, Cultural Institute, University of Leeds)

Kully Thiarai (Creative Director and CEO, LEEDS 2023)

Martin Hamilton (Director, Leeds Civic Trust)