No time to relax ...

Development opportunity?

 

New signs have popped up around Battlefield (a.k.a. The City Stadium) highlighting its attractions. These are to be welcomed – as far as they go. Remember, this is Newcastle and promises are meant to be broken.

For long Battlefield cum City Stadium enjoyed no protection at all. I was reliably informed it isn't even technically Public Open Space.

I started to write and illustrated this blog because plans had appeared, disappeared and re-appeared in amended form around the turn of the century to build (in turn and turn about) offices (using the 'open space' to park 1300 cars!); then 350 plus apartments. Kiboshed over ground pollution fears because the site adjacent had been a paint factory that used lead, arsenic, antimony, cadmium and whatnot to make products, the schemes at City Centre Planning to off load the site languished until overseas tax haven avoidance schemes produced a series of student accommodation blocks, as if my magic. Students must be immune to heavy metal.

But some of the plan had envisioned effectively privatising the open space; playing fields, changing rooms and doubtless much restricted or removed rights of access for the public.

Far fetched or just delayed for the moment?

The Observer publishes a column today that sets out the facts. Eva Wiseman puts figures to the fears I and others have for the future of Public Open Space as a thing in cities in the age of neo-liberal economics.

'In 2019, after eight years of austerity, their funding cut by 60%, councils sold off thousands of public spaces, including libraries, community centres and playgrounds. An added little kick: the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found 64 councils in England had spent a third of the money made from selling these public assets on making staff redundant. Locality, a campaign group fighting to save public spaces, estimates that nearly half of all public land in Britain has been sold off since the 1970s; they say nearly 4,000 public spaces and buildings are being sold off every year in England alone. Sometimes they’re turned into flats and offices, sometimes those offices are surrounded by “privately owned public spaces”, with security guards patrolling, and cameras in the trees, and no photos, or protests, or rough sleeping allowed. They look like parks, but feel once removed – like an illustration of a park, or a photocopy.'

Emphasis added. Read the entire article here.

So, let us welcome recognition of the value to our community and visitors of this inner city open space, but let's not be complacent about it. Ever.