Groundwork

A wander around doing a litter pick. It has astonished me how much the Battlefield (a.k.a. 'City Stadium') has developed into a real park from it's humble beginning as I saw forty years or more ago. Trees are approaching something like maturity; the wildlife interest has developed inline with that. It is wonderful to see how well most users enjoy its opportunities for relaxation and informal sport, a safe space for children. Most but not all; there is a litter problem but nota fly tipping problem thankfully. Litter sends a signal and it is never a good one.

Photographic galleries are an issue and when I have the time I am going to seek a solution. Meanwhile I do have along time photographic library and I hope to make that public.

An Important Annoucement!

 Or, rather, message. What ever we do, it does not matter about scale, but together we can make a difference to wildlife and our own lives.

A short film explains all!

A bit of 'guerilla' gardening!

Pollinators, excavators

The flower meadow seeded on part of the City Stadium a.k.a. Battlefield has sprung into a mass of blooms. For some reason part of the marked oof area, some of it de-turfed and preapred wasn't seeded. But the majority was and the results are stunning.

Combined with the herbaceous 'line' running the length of the main route over the Battlefield site this has made for a wonderful colourful display for our High Summer and a welcome addition for many bees and other 'pollinators' to exploit and, hopefully, thrive after several years of concern. Bees are vital to the health of our environment, so seeing them, hive species and solitary's in numbers, is a great relief.

Meanwhile others also delve. The Lidl's site progresses too.

'Big on Quality Lidl on Price'

Work begins

Lidl's supermarket's were a favourite for me even before I discovered they were building a store in Shieldfield on the old motor homes sales site at the junction of Portland Road and Warwick Street. True, I would have quite liked that cleared site to be integrated back into the City Stadium; for a while it had been used by skateboarders, a use I approved of but didn't last.

When plans were released I saw the flowering cherry trees beside Portland Road felled and posted about that vandalism on this blog. I wrote e-mails to all three of my local Councillors at that time for an explanation, and sent a copy to Lidl's U.K. Only Lidl's UK replied. Their reply came with a full outline of their plans and drawings and pledges to make good any lost trees and more; it also claimed the tree felling was requested by Newcastle City Council. The e-mail promised tree planting around the site in double figures, a sedum roof and comprehensive controls on waste management and integral re-cycling.

This preceded the Covid Pandemic and since then little has happened on site. I heard a rumour another large food retailer had placed an objection. Last month a digger turned up and work is well underway.

Shieldfield and Sandyford suffers from limited access to affordable and varied food at price points most can afford. 'Food access poverty' is a thing, particularly for the less mobile; we have many such households in the district.

A supermarket for Shieldfield

We shall have to wait and see if all the environmental promises are met. I still have the correspondence and will monitor progress. However, for the community's sake, I welcome Lidl's.

Dump

Newcastle City Centre east of Northumberland Street is a dump. Not alone, just the easiest one to reach.. This decay of what was once real and genuine replaced by machine age ambition stems from planning group think that was rolled out by just about every city and town council in the land more than half a century ago.  A corporate Modernism on the cheap, that everywhere became bleak, desolate and alienating, as it rapidly aged. 

The big players are deserting the High Street for cyber space and shopping is being transformed into a increasing ribbon development of fast food and beverage outlets selling froth and starch. The cycle of digging up Pilgrim Street, Grey Street, Grainger Street and Northumberland Street one after the other, each time subtracting from what point there was to each, less and less a city one wants to to spend time in The only places that have any identity left are the one's left out of the Great Leap Forward of the 60s.

Princess Square makes the point better than words. This is what the Shining Bright Future the planners envisioned looks like when concrete rots in line with blind ambition. Comfortless destitution, no nostalgic grandeur that was never there in the first place to be admired in decay.