Little London, Leeds

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Little London, along with its adjacent areas Lovell Park and Blenheim, is an area of 1960s high-rise and maisonette council housing in inner-city north Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, situated between the city centre and Sheepscar.

It is home to a small population of Students, although nowhere near as many as the more popular student areas such as Headingley Woodhouse, or Hyde Park.

It has a brand new Children's Centre called ' Little London Children's Centre ' designed by Leeds Architects Bauman Lyons.

Little London will almost certainly become swallowed up by the ever expanding city centre. There are flats going up all around the area and there are plans in place to demolish the area surrounding Carlton Barracks to make way for more flats.

The 1960s built council flats, stand high at around fifteen stories, however they are now dwarfed by new private developments exceeding 20 stories.

The 1960s council housing in the lower parts of Little London originally housed many of the people from nearby Woodhouse, where there was large scale demolition and slum clearance. The Woodhouse residents were originally going to be dispersed around Leeds but after a prolonged battle with the council, they won the right to move the short distance to the new Holborn Estate.

There are currently plans to demolish the housing in Little London (which is largely 1960's and 1980s built council housing). This will leave only the high rise flats which would be privatised, and sold on. There is criticism that these flats will be luxury, high specification flats that current residents will not be able to afford.^[1] This led to graffiti in the area stating 'Hands off our Homes' and 'Yuppies Out'. The campaign and debate with Leeds City Council is ongoing. It has been confirmed the council intend to sell the three Lovell Park Tower blocks (the most prominent of the tower blocks and closest to the city centre) to a property developer for conversion into private flats. Tennants groups have accused the council of benefiting wealthy city workers and property developers at their expense, while Leeds City Council have accused left wing activists of misusing the campaign.^[2]

The area has a small shopping precinct with a Post Office, Off Licence and various other shops. The areas most notable public house, The Londoner (formerly The Little Londoner) closed in 2005 and was demolished in 2006, there is now a building exceeding 20 stories on the site of the former pub. This now leaves just two pubs, The Hobby Horse and The Leeds Rifleman.

The area backs onto the Sheepscar Interchange (a major road interchange between the A61 towards Harrogate and the A58 towards Wetherby) and the Leeds Inner Ring Road. The Merrion Centre is also nearby.

[edit] Crime

The area did have a bad reputation. However in recent years crime in the area has fallen. Problem tenants have been moved elsewhere and ASBOs have been issued. This has cut drug dealing (which had become particularly problematic on and around Blackman Lane) and associated crime.^[3]. The area was described as a haven for drug dealers in 2003.^[4]