South Bank – former Yorkshire Chemicals site

In 2013 Yorkshire Design Group purchased and remediated 7.5 acres of former industrial land within the South Bank area of Leeds and saw through to completion an 8 month, multi-million pound project to remove contamination and make the site ready for redevelopment.

Due to previous industrial processes on this and neighbouring sites, land was contaminated with pollutants including trichloroethene, chlorobenzene and hydrocarbons. YDG oversaw the remediation of the entire site, from surface level to a depth of 8 metres, to meet improvement targets set by the Environment Agency.

Although the site had lain empty for nearly a decade, YDG’s initiative led to the transformation of a substantial part of the South Bank, from long-term industrial dereliction to a location with positive new uses, life and activity in less than 36 months. We are very proud of this achievement.

This location is now recognised as having huge transformational potential for the city. South Bank Leeds and YDG have been at the forefront of establishing a new education hub for Leeds. New premises for Leeds College of Building were completed on our former site in January 2015 and, thanks to the initiative of the Leeds Sustainable Development Group, the Ruth Gorse Academy opened here in September 2016. This secondary school, the country’s largest free school, will be a key catalyst for new family housing close to Leeds city centre. The first such development of this nature will be Citu’s Climate Change Innovation District.

Nearby, Leeds City College’s Printworks Campus is already operational, and a new University Technical College has opened, occupying a specially converted premises acquired from the adjacent Braime metalworks.