[James Malloch]

Just found out that I'm moving to Leeds in July for a year placement from Uni. I will be working in the Centre closeish to the station.

Any nice areas to look for houses for rent? Any good bouldering walls around?

Cheers
James

[andy_e]

I've (possibly) got a room available for rent in July close to Burley Park station, a five-minute train journey in to the centre. Rent is yet to be decided but it won't be too costly... Good local amenities, really nice gas hob, etc. etc...

[aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB]

Headingley's full of bloody stud…

Ah.

[SA Chris]

If you intend commuting by train to city centre, it makes sense being close to one of the train stations West / NW of city centre - Burley is a good call, as is Kirstall and Horsforth. Also living that way gives you quick access to the crags around Otleyish area.

Leeds Wall and City Bloc are a (brisk?) walk from city centre  / train station and you can access the Depot from the ring road.

[tommytwotone]

As ARFC says, Headingley / Burley are student central, which may be a good or bad thing depending on your lifestyle once you start working!

North Leeds seems now to be where the "young professionals" live - Chapel Allerton, Roundhay etc. I live in the former and it is really nice (replete with local independant arts centre!), but comes with the price tag (currently £600 pcm for a 2-bed flat).

Leeds is really good for public transport, everywhere within the ring road at least is very well connected. First buses do a weekly ticket for £13 that is valid within the "green zone", this is a fair bit cheaper than passes outside of that zone so might be worth considering. Map below shows it:

http://www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/leeds/assets/pdfs/maps/Leeds_Network_Map.pdf

Walls-wise, you've got the choice of The Depot in Pudsey (west edge of Leeds), City Bloc (south edge of the city) and Leeds Wall (southwest edge of the city). The former are bouldering wall, Leeds Wall has bolt clipping too. No opinons really on which is "best", they've all got their good and bad points. I think there was a thread on the matter a while back.

[SA Chris]

ttt, why did i think you were York based?

[tommytwotone]

I was, lived there until October 2010 but I ended up spending so much time to-ing and fro-ing to Leeds for training / crag visits that I soon realised that Leeds was the place to be!

[SA Chris]

That'll be it. Makes sense.

[tomtom]

My tuppence...

Depends what you want and what your budget is.

If you want to live in the centre - there are loads of flats for rent in the new hi-rises that sprouted up before the property crash.. nice apartments right in the centre...

There are good areas and bad areas, but what I remember most about living in Leeds (92-99) is that the boundaries are hard to find.. you can have a couple of shit streets in one area and the rest is fine... Burley's a good example - there are plenty of good bits, but some parts I'd want to avoid.. I've lived in Hyde Park, Headingley, Wheatwood and Horsforth (slowly moved north).

Houses in Pudsey are cheap(er) if you want to be close to the Depot - Citybloc is really close to some of the new flat developments in the centre. Leeds wall is close(ish) to the centre too. As others have said if you live to the north then you're closer to the Cliff and Otley.. (15min drive from Horsforth/Wwood). Headlingley is where the student boozers are - and there are some nice places to live there, but rentals have a slight premium..

[James Malloch]

Cheers for the replies, I'll have a budget of £300-400, ideally with bills included.

I will get a bike for travel so hopefully that will cut out any transport issues (though it doesn't sound bad anyway!)

Ideally I'd not be in too studenty an area.

[SA Chris]

There's a good path along the canal all the way to city centre that can be cycled (although I'm not sure it's an official cycle path. Some of the bridges have steps though. Easy to get on it from Kirkstall, Burnley and various points west. Closer you are to city centre means further away from the crags!

[tommytwotone]

Forgot to mention - if you're looking out west (Bramley / Pudsey) then they're on the railway line that links Leeds and Bradford so commuting shoudln't be too bad from there.

[andy_e]

Cheers for the replies, I'll have a budget of £300-400, ideally with bills included.

My gaffe would be probably about £260 + bills,drop me a line if you want to know any more.

[tomtom]

Buy a big lock or get a shit bike and paint it pink...

[ianv]

You could also think about somewhere out of town like Saltaire near Bradford. 20mins on the train/50 on the bike to Leeds, Bouldering (of sorts) at Shipley Glen and Baildon Bank (within walking distance), not too bad for Ilkley, a bouldering wall (pretty small) at Bingley (10mins on the bike), lower potential for getting burgled than around Headingley and good access to the lime.

[James Malloch]

Andi_e, I'll drop you a line soon mate, cheers!

I've been looking in the Hyde Park/Headingley/Burley area after decided the city centre isn't for me, all look reasonable for a commute and access to climbing walls.

Is it that bad for bike theft? I'd hope that my work will have a decent bike storage  place, though I need to look into it. Is it bad around the climbing walls?

[Will Hunt]

Agree with all that has been said. Does anybody here live in or around Saltaire? I'm picking up the keys for the new pad tomorrow in the lower village. Anyone keen for after work crushing?

[dunnyg]

I will get a train to baildon whenever it is sunny. x

[csl]

Andi_e, I'll drop you a line soon mate, cheers!

I've been looking in the Hyde Park/Headingley/Burley area after decided the city centre isn't for me, all look reasonable for a commute and access to climbing walls.

Is it that bad for bike theft? I'd hope that my work will have a decent bike storage  place, though I need to look into it. Is it bad around the climbing walls?

Not bad around the climbing walls, Leeds Wall and Depot both have courtyard/car parks you can lock your bike in and its unlikely to get stolen. And city bloc has a skatepark in the same building so i'd imagine they'll have somewhere pretty safe for bikes since BMXers n that will be there a lot.

[TobyD]

I lived in Leeds for 3 1/2 years, in Hyde park / Far Headingley and Bramley.

Bramley is great as it has a handy train station (£2 rtn to city, 10 min) cheap rent and easy to get to the depot (1 mile) but it is a bit scuzzy, and there aren't any decent pubs.

Far Headingley is lovely, well leafy, good for getting out of the city and handy for the excellent bars and restaurants in Headingley (some of them, not the student dives! ;-) ) It is also like TTT says abut chapel A, well pricey as a result.

Hyde park is kind of a mid point between the two, nearer the city, worse for crime, but easy to walk to city centre (20 min ish) and can be cheap or expensive depending on road / type of pad you go for.

[ianv]

Hyde park has one of the highest burglary rates in the country.

Will, I live near wilsden, have a wall in the house. Not mega steep, not massive but pm me if you fancy a session. Only just started climbing again so there will be very little crushing happening though.