Vauxhall Road & Leeds Street

I hate Leeds Street, councillor Kennedy can spend his time tarting it up but it will always be one of Liverpool's biggest barriers. It has all the charm of one of Telford's motorways or a Skelmersdale round about, it makes Hemel Hempstead look pretty. You cannot see anything nice from it, and it is difficult to cross. Everything that is wrong with Liverpool city centre planning is made manifest in Leeds street.
Effectively when you are north of Leeds street you are beyond the pale. In the process of writing this, I found out that the bit to the east of the junction with Vauxhall is new up until the late 60 or early 70s Leeds street ended at Vauxhall. The street west of Vauxhall was also some 40 metres further south, it ran along where the wall is now, and was, of course, a lot narrower. The bit to the east follows the line of Banastre street, which while it butted up against Vauxhall didn't seem to have had a connection to it. See here on the Scotland National Library of Scotland Maps.

Then

Blackstock Gardens

Memorial

Now

Looking North

Looking South

Looking East

Looking West

It is difficult to tell which of Leeds Street junctions is the most unpleasant, about the only none shit thing is the view west, much looks better in real life. It shows more completely how Liverpool is divided than any other, before the streets annexation of Banastre street a Pedestrian would have been able to walk all the way down Vauxhall on the east side without crossing a major street.
Now, of course, you cannot and you take you life in your hands if you cycle. Town just peters out, Leeds Street needs to be bridged like several other of Liverpool's disconnects. Perhaps a biggish building in the north-west corner to replace the 70s peel tower below.

I have no idea what this is

The building in the north eastern corner is Lawton's a company that makes packaging the area seems to be the beginning of light industry moving away from the corporate city centre. This is not a long way from it older use on the west side of Vauxhall but to the east was more residential including the ill-fated Blackstock Gardens where an air raid shelter took a direct hit early in WW2, killing at least 72 people.
There is some development planned for the area under the name Pumpfields and some up near Bevington Bush, but Leeds street still needs to be tackled, to remove the barrier, a foot and cycle bridge would be an excellent start

Future

The Via Verde was a plan by the Eldonian Group to develop the land to the North East of the Junction it would have looked a damn sight better than it does at the moment but it seems that the council wanted to keep it light industrial, despite there being no lack space to move such companies too. See the Echo report here. A mistake by the council but perhaps it would reconsider and perhaps we could get some better building in a year or twos time

Via Verde from Leeds street

Update

I should have checked the Council Planning site a little harder, in April the Eldonia Group resubmitted a revised Via Verde see here.