Early fall

Newcastle City Council's Newcastle stroke Gateshead 'Core' document just dropped a few leaves in turning over. The valued architectural heritage is only valued when it can not be bought and sold and demolished.

Somehow one of the city's gems, Summerhill Square off Westgate Road, does not count despite its historic significance and liberal amounts of cash spent doing much of it up late last century. Part has now been demolished to make way for a large town house; or, at least, what was there has come down. Old readers of this kind of news will recall other episodes where the act of demolition of historic buildings somehow transformed the published plans subsequently (cf Old Eldon Square). Don't be surprised if this site becomes  a supermarket. For some reason this whole farrago reminds me of a line in a favourite film –

"I gotta have lots of money so I can juice the guys I gotta juice, so I can get a lotta money so I can juice the guys I gotta juice."  Marty Augustine in The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman 1973)