Leeds

The majority of the film has to be made from me exploring the city on foot, I can’t drive or take taxis, because that would be too easy, although some public transport is allowed. I may or may not use a bicycle to get to some of the harder to reach places, although that is yet undecided. With that said, 99% of the finished footage will be from me having walked the Metropolitan Borough. I have found that roughly 20 minutes of edited footage equates to around 10,000 steps, and I’m currently on 14 hours of finished and edited footage. So I’ve already walked a long way, in fact so far on this project (as of September, 2020), I have walked 410,000 steps, which equates to around 210 miles, which is roughly the distance from Leeds to Glasgow.

The film has to be in Leeds, that may seem like a strange point to make, but the boundaries of Leeds are confusing. For example, parts of Leeds have a Bradford postcode (e.g. Tyersal and Drighlington), and parts of Bradford have a Leeds postcode (e.g. Ilkley). Unpicking where the boundaries are has been part and parcel of the challenge. I am going with the official Leeds city council boundaries for the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, rather than postcode, phone code or any other means of identifying where is and isn’t Leeds.

So far, there have been a couple of occasions where I have had to stray from Leeds, but this has usually been to get back into Leeds in one continual journey without having to double back on myself, for example, I walked along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and had to cross from Calverley into Apperley Bridge, which is in Bradford, in order to be able to continue my journey into Calverley village via Calverley Cutting. I think under such circumstances it’s forgivable to stray a little. 99.99% of the finished film will be within the Leeds Metropolitan Borough.

The film has to present what I see and hear, there are no manufactured situations, I don’t talk on the camera, I don’t play background music on the edited footage. My portrayal is honest, but I do add sub-titles to identify the locations within the scenes.

Thankfully I haven’t encountered many problems, almost everyone that I have encountered along the way has voiced support, I can only recall two occasions where somebody objected to me filming.

The coronavirus pandemic could have been a problem, but in the end it provided me with an opportunity to film places that ordinarily would be busy, but were instead quiet. The contrast is very noticeable and has made for some nice footage.

The main problem that I have faced is confusion as to where I actually am. Leeds isn’t very good at signage and boundaries between localities are often eroded by estate agents and businesses. I can remember in the early 2000s when Meanwood wasn’t as desirable a location to live in as what it is today, that estate agents would advertise houses in Meanwood as being in Headingley, similarly today houses in Tinshill and Ireland Wood are often advertised as being in Cookridge, which leads to people thinking that their new home is somewhere that it isn’t. Places come and go and borders do change, Cookridge used to extend to the border with Moortown, but nobody who lives in modern day Adel would say that they live in Cookridge. Holt Park began as a housing estate, but is now a suburb in its own right with a high school, library, leisure centre and Asda (which is incorrectly called Asda Adel).

Newlay was a suburb of Bramley, it once shared a railway station with Horsforth and it had a munitions factory, but it no longer appears on Google Maps, Open Street Maps or Apple Maps, therefore does it still exist? Well it does actually appear on Ordnance survey maps so yes it probably does still exist as a very small area at the bottom of Bramley Fall Park. But there isn’t even a Wikipedia entry for Newlay, instead it is designated as being an estate within Bramley and not a suburb in its own right. I went to the Abbey Inn pub and despite them having an award on display which identified the Abbey Inn as being in Newlay, the bar staff told me very firmly that they were in Bramley. I suspect that some people who live on the new housing estate behind the Abbey Inn identify themselves as being in Newlay rather than Bramley, but would that be an example of suburban snobbery or geographical accuracy?

Politcal boundaries don’t help either, Weetwood Ward covers parts of Lawnswood, West Park and Far Headingley, none of which are actually in Weetwood, which itself is a very small suburb to the north west of these places.

Railway Stations are also problematic: Horsforth Station is entirely (apart from the car park) in Cookridge; New Pudsey station is in Farsley; Kirkstall Forge station is in Bramley as it’s south of the River Aire, and; Apperley Bridge station is in Rawdon. But do people still associate these locations with their actual boundaries? Is it time to redraw the map? Could Kirkstall Forge be a new suburb in its own right? It’s currently in Bramley (or maybe even Newlay) but should it be?

Then there’s the sports teams who don’t play in their locality: Burley Rugby Union Football Club is in Kirkstall; West Park Rugby Club is in Bramhope, and; Woodhouse Cricket Club is in Meanwood (to name but a few examples). But they are just the tip of the iceberg, because if you add businesses into the mix you will find that: Asda Adel is in Holt Park; Gusto Cookridge is in Ireland Wood; Lawnswood Dental Care is in Ireland Wood (ironically next door to Gusto Cookridge); The Lawnswood Arms is in Adel, and; Britannia Hotel Leeds Bradford Airport is in Bramhope and certainly not walking distance with a suitcase to Leeds Bradford Airport, which is in Yeadon.

Lastly there are those places that are just unknown and become known by their postcodes, e.g. Sugarwell Court on Meanwood road is in LS7, but is this part of LS7 technically in Meanwood, or is it Woodhouse, Little London or even Sheepscar? I’ve asked many people and the consensus is that it probably is in Meanwood, but nobody knows for sure, as Meanwood Beck likely is the old border for Meanwood, which puts Sugarwell Court on the non-Meanwood side of the border. If it’s not in Meanwood, where is it? Also what about those places on the A65 Kirkstall Road that back onto the River Aire such as Grosvenor Casino, is that classed as city centre, Armley or Burley? Is the new housing development Holts Crest Way, which sits in-between the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal classed as city centre, Armley or somewhere else?

Please don’t take any of the above as a rant, I’m being tongue in cheek here, but can you appreciate how difficult it can be to identify locations, when you actually have no idea where you are, and three different people give you four different answers!?

So in summary, the main problem that I’ve encountered in making this film has been geography. I just wish that Leeds had more signs to make things easier for me!

For further updates please see my Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/LeedsTheMovie , I can be emailed on mosstraveltv@gmail.com .