The Groves of Byker Part the Second

I will have more to say. For now the photography will do.

Another photographic slideshow here on an off site link.

A follow up collection of thoughts about the significance of urban walks soon.

The Groves of Byker Part the First

The start

A walk in high summer down the delightful pedestrian and cycle path that begins behind the local Mecca Bingo, under the roadway, past the imposing archway sculpture that tries (quite successfully) to reflect the former industrial activities this railway once served and onwards towards Walker and the Tyne.

The walk is inspiring for its sense of history in the remains of the impressive 19th century railway architecture that survives and the riotous nature that has seized on an opportunity to thrive in the midst of the city. But make up your own mind. Off site photographic gallery here.

Ring out the awful, bring in the so-so

The old Tyne & Wear Council offices on Sandyford Road,
one of the ugliest buildings in the whole of Newcastle,
currently dominates the entrance to the development
I hope the developers plan to knock it down.

When I first saw the transformation of the former Scottish Life buildings alongside the old Jesmond station, betwixt and between Sandyford Road (sic) and the Central Motorway, I was sitting with a man who had shaken hands with Frank Lloyd Wright. He looked at the concrete framework against the setting sun and said "I wish they would leave it just as it is'. It did have a certain Cubist attractiveness.

Years later the transformation has almost been completed except for a proposed tower block that will soar above the junction of Jesmond Road and Osborne Terrace. It is quite a sight even on the drawing board.

I missed the open event where the architects and developers presented their plans. Pity. But I did a bit of wandering about myself a day later on a nice evening and made a record of the current development.

I have to admit it isn't all bad. Not for me, but as an alternative to eating up the greenbelt, and, above all, an imaginative re-purposing of an office block, much to commend it. The detailing is good but also rather 'Canary Wharf', that soulless material, stainless steel, too much in evidence. What it's like to live next to all that car pollution, noise and poor air quality, I do not know.

So a guarded welcome for me. And a hope more of this city's wretched old office blocks and several newer ones that are unlet or never been let, will find a new use as housing. Bringing people back into our cities should be a priority

What do you think? Link to off site photograph gallery here.

The Rurban Belt

As more and more of Newcastle and Tyneside's Green Belts go under concrete the focus is on saving what's left. What is that exactly? Much of it is rye grass and barbed wire, jig-saw puzzled by Sitka spruce lozenges; or blocked out by golf courses. None of these places are friendly to walkers and cyclists and there are few footpaths and these not well sign posted. It leaves one thinking 'What is the Green Belt for?'

In defending the Green Belt in recent years the alternative sites for house building have often been focused on 'brownfield', land where industry once stood, now cleared of buildings, extensive concrete floors or runways, pockets of self sown birch and buddleia sprung up uninvited. Build on these sites first seems to be the argument. Oddly, in my experience brownfield sites are potentially if not actually, much richer in terms of their eclectic plant and animal populations than the, sainted by historic legislation and custom, Green Belt.

Recently I have been on two expeditions to see what old industrial land looks like. The experience is much more positive and exciting than looking at fields of chemical sprayed grass and crops.

Brockley Whins. View to the east from former Bolden Colliery.

There is something marvellous at seeing nature making a come back. There once stood a large colliery and a bank of railway yards transporting coal to the near by River Tyne. Long gone, the resultant landscape, bruised by heavy usage. In places it's possible to see the planted woodland is growing from a mixture of limestone ballast deposits and colliery waste. Yet wildflowers, particularly one's attracted to higher pH levels. In places a kind of grass meadow has formed. rich in Bird's-foot-trefoil. In wetter spots,  orchids and yellow flags. Of concern, and not just at this site, is the lack of flying insects. We seem to be in a time when the once familiar 'hum' of a warm summer's day in our countryside is memory.

Nevertheless, there are reasons to be optimistic. Whitethroats, Great Tits, Chaffinches still singing, ubiquitous Magpies, a Moorhen obviously displeased to have its young bothered by a passer by, and a Heron beside the burn that bounds the site were all welcome. Even a few butterflies, common blue and gatekeeper types.

Have we got it right about Green Belts and nature? It seems to me not. If I am honest I think the what the Green Belt stands for in people's imagination is not meeting current needs. A Green Belt that is uninviting, cannot be explored needs re-examining. It's time to think about what delivers experience and connections rather than mere expanse. I'm not trying to make the case for overwheening greed, opportunism or simply bad planning, such as is the case today around the north east, but bringing a fresh point of view to these discussions. A nature beyond reach, is not nature in people's lives at all. It's a concept out of reach.

Online gallery here (Off site link)

Real and Unreal

The Ouseburn Barrage

I picked up a copy of Ouseburn Valley News recently (1). I rarely see it. Ouseburn Valley News is the newsletter of the Ouseburn Valley Trust, a front organisation of Newcastle City Council. It was this Trust that instigated the Barrage Fiasco that resulted in a massive over spend and an unused barrage that mucked up the area around the popular and successful Tyne Bar. The total cost of the barrage was something like more than six million quid all of it borne by Newcastle Council Taxpayers. An alternative to the barrage idea put forward by an independent group of local campaigners that involved using natural processes to resolve the mud question was overruled. Since that time I have viewed the Trust with askance. It seemed to me, and this was confirmed by subsequent events, that the Trust was pursuing a Newcastle Council 'corporatist' agenda in the Lower Ouseburn.

Long time ago I entertained a visitor to the city, a journalist. He and I went for a drink on the Quayside. We discussed the then recent re-built river frontage and admired the views along the Tyne. Then, we took a stroll into Ouseburn. As we came into the Valley, Jonathan turned to me and said "I like urban dereliction". I know what he meant. So do thousands of other people sensitive to the possibilities that arise with unplanned and often unloved areas of our cities and towns. That old expression 'scope for the imagination' has a grounding in truth. Many such places have been highlighted around the world now, unfortunately too frequently because the bull dozers and developers have rocked up to begin work 'transforming' 'dereliction' into expensive 'destinations'.

Togetherness

Ouseburn has been similarly threatened. Indeed, the barrage was intended to assist and enable Lower Ouseburn to become such a 'destination' beloved of the planners and their corporate mindset. Lower Ouseburn would lose the mud at low tide and then very expensive apartments could be built alongside the burn with the ouse covered by water. Smart? Thank heavens it never happened. Or, not yet.

'Mud, glorious mud ...'

On the front page of Ouseburn Valley News I read this:

'We feel a plan for the Ouseburn should not simply be about its regeneration, but about protecting and celebrating what we already have here too.'

I take 'we' to mean the Board of Trustees. If so, this is good news. No longer a rubber stamp for Council plans then. Moreover, looking forward, the writer also adds:

'We want to be ambitious but do not want to compromise what makes Ouseburn special.'

One way of interpreting ambition in this context would be diametrically opposite to 'what makes Ouseburn special'. That must be obvious. I think it so and from reading between the lines I suspect the writer does too.

My own fear that the Lower Ouseburn was a step on a pathway designed in planning offices and awaiting the next consignment of catalogue instant heritage ye olde finger post signs and genuine fake white marble and original Victorian stainless steel handrails have lessened. Not entirely, but much abated by what I have read.

The essential character of Ouseburn is that it was not planned but re-discovered and cherished exactly for those qualities that are now an obstacle to some and a delight to others. It doesn't need the 'heritage' treatment that ruins so much it touches. The very incoherence and occasional inconvenience – a too narrow pathway or over steep set of steps – has to be set against what the alternative would bring in train. Let's keep it real.

(1) Ouseburn Valley News, April 2019