Leeds welcomes a new pop-up park and a child friendly ‘playscape’ in the city centre!
Working with the child friendly Leeds team, a great new playscape was installed this summer in St John’s Churchyard, New Briggate. Situated just outside the Age UK Café, The Arch, sits an interactive garden scene comprised of climbable sculptures and family picnic benches.
In our aim to make Leeds City Centre more family friendly and to activate the city centre’s green-space, we have installed a new pop-up playscape in St John’s churchyard. It is hoped the playscape in the churchyard over the summer holiday will help to encourage people to sit and relax in the beautiful grade 1 listed grounds. The playscape will be in-situ for the duration of the school summer holidays and will then be moved to other locations in the city centre.
The second project was the new temporary green space off Cookridge Street includes artificial grass, planters, benches and deck chairs and will be in place for four weeks from the 10th August. The pop-up park will see the nearby street closed to traffic and is aimed at creating a new relaxing summer space for people to enjoy at lunchtimes and in the evenings when the sun is out.
Councillor Judith Blake, leader of Leeds City Council said:
“The pop-up park on Cookridge Street and the new playscape at St John’s bring some extra temporary greenspace to Leeds city centre and we hope that as well as being relaxing places for shoppers and office workers, they will also be a place that children and families can enjoy.”
The two projects also follow the ongoing pilot of the pedestrianisation of Greek Street on a part-time basis over the summer, also aimed at creating more vibrant, traffic-free spaces in the city centre.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the playscape and the pop-up park, please email: city.centre.management1@leeds.gov.uk
