Two for One

 Newcastle doesn't do well for parks. One had a motor way built through it on two sides and the other survived – survives? – by accident.

Exhibition Park as come on a lot since it suffered the blow of being amputated from the city by a road scheme. Making best of a bad deal.

Leazes Park was the subject of a devious plot but in one bound was set free, despite the best (sneaky, underhand) efforts of the Council, Hall Enterprises and the Freemen of the City. The proposed Sporting Club of Newcastle United with private access, exclusive shops and gym etc., etc. were never really on. Leazes in actually part of the Town Moor and so Common Land, protected by Act of Parliament. I was persuaded by a long time observer of things Newcastle that the 'scheme' was a scam. But Leazes remains and thrives too.

As 'the virus' continues, we hear much about the changes the year of quarantines and restrictions on our daily lives will mean long term. The consequences for two previously bubbling along nicely sectors, student accommodation and offices are sharply in view. Newcastle's universities relied for their financial security on overseas, especially Chinese students; even before Covid-19 that was looking shaky and now positively dire as we come out of the Chinese silver lining that marked the first two decades of this century. An obvious bubble. Then there is the continuing mystery of office building where few of the completed blocks have ever had paying occupants.

On top of which the famed High Street that boggled the small mind of at least one over promoted functionary heading English Estates last century –'High Street U.K.' flopped in 2008 with the Banker's Gambling Debt crisis.

Forward thinkers are now looking at the post Covid city. What some have suggested will form the discussion in my next post. Meanwhile here's a look at our two isolated but precious green spaces in winter. Photographic gallery: Leazes Park here. (off site link) Exhibition Park here (off site link)

Full house at a frozen Leazes Park Lake

Sent to Coventry

Coventry a la mode – soon to be the U.K.'s next City of Culture.
Many towns and cities went for this 'look'. It reminds this writer of the
deeply unloved and unlovely Newgate Shopping Centre (demolished)

One of the forgotten parts of this country's modern history is the widespread destruction by aerial bombing known as the Blitz of the Second World War on our cities and towns. Many never recovered from a loss of heritage that still shocks to read and inwardly digest. Leicester in 1939 might well have been recognisable to Richard III in 1483. Canterbury saw its Chaucer era medieval centre flattened. Bath, Bristol, Belfast, Glasgow. Liverpool, London, Newcastle and more – ancient and modern together.

But what happened post war to these ruins is the subject of a debate among historians and architects to this day. Unlike Continental Europe, the idea that one might re-build as things had been occurred to no one in authority here in the United Kingdom. Town planners seized a 'once in a life time opportunity' and the peculiar anaemic styles of British Modernity flooded over the spaces created by high explosive. Few were pleased by the results but with so much else to do in a country that was functionally broke, shrugged and moved on. The audience for the competing arguments about heritage and modernity in built form was much smaller than it is today. Besides, the influential wanted a new start and put the past away – and much survived, so what was the problem?

The Guardian reports on one such planning response of the 50s in the iconic victimhood of Coventry, singled out in one infamous raid in 1940. The post war enthusiasm for concrete and motor cars – Coventry was England's 'motor city' at the time, helped polish off such fragments of medieval heritage* that the bombers missed.

How is this relevant to Newcastle? Planning in this city always has something waiting in the wings. The development (sic) of East Pilgrim Street anticipates more offices and retail space at a time when neither faces a rosey future. In Coventry, as the Guardian article explains, there has already been re-think for the mix of one part of its proposed dramatic 're-modelling'; a seventy thirty split of office and retail versus accommodation has been reversed, reflecting the changes brought about by as much else Covid-19 on the patterns of our lives and occupations. Newcastle already possesses – if that is the right expression – a massive over provision of office space, large parts of which have never had a commercial tenant since completion this century. 

There is also a real threat hanging over the 'business models' of our three Universities. The Chinese turning in-house after Hong Kong and Covid-19 issues and an increasing froidure in their international relationships, plus student debt versus employment prospects, reflects badly on what it costs for a few years of 'uni' life. The pell-mell 'money for old rope' student dwellings racket is on the verge of bursting me thinks. What happens next? This city has, as it were, planned for a war that isn't going to happen and is soon to be stuck with its very own version of the Maginot Line.

It might have been so different as one comment beneath the Guardian article explains:

'Philosophaster writes –

• 'Travel all through Europe and every town has a centre largely made up of old buildings made of local materials in local styles that make them all unique, interesting and worth visiting. Even in Poland, which was mostly flattened in WW2, they've rebuilt their centres how they were. In the UK, however, with a few exceptions which are now the centres of our heritage tourism, every historical town centre has been destroyed, several times each, by our own town planners, building companies and corporations, replaced with generic style and materials, cheaply designed and constructed, and filled with the same shops and offices. If you were dropped into a high street, you would have no idea were you were, it could be Anytown. An industrial mill from the 20th century is often the best we can hope for by way of preserving architectural heritage. Simply, the UK has the ugliest towns in Europe.'

*This echoes the post war planning history of Canterbury. A severe attack late in the war destroyed much, but the then city council did the rest. A Town Hall that pre-dated Chaucer's classic tale of Pilgrims was allowed to deteriorate to the point that it was demolished post war. Other gems narrowly avoided destruction at the hands of 'butcher, baker and candlestick maker' councillors.

The Bridge to Battlefield

 The end of the Year of Covid or just Part One? Time and vaccines will tell.

Meanwhile, I doubt if my reader needs to dwell on what has been a very strange year in flashbacks. I worry more about the future of the the small enterprises that have made new from old so interesting in the various approach roads to the Battlefield. Who will still be there next spring?

I took my last walk of 2020 around this patch of the green space recently. I walked from the White Bridge in Jesmond Vale alongside the swollen Ouseburn. I had a sighting of a Dipper standing on a rock poking up out of the milky coloured water, tweeting its chipper song, holding territory for breeding early next year hopefully. Then uphill past the roadway over the former dene and onto the flattened space of the City Stadium (a.k.a. Battlefield to me). Damp after much rain and the sky thin and watery still, but brighter. The threat to Battlefield has faded to almost nil. Urban Green, the stand alone charity that now runs (with what? Money is desperately short still) Newcastle's parks and gardens has said some encouraging things. It seems not to be a ruse for commercial interests to take over the city's green spaces and turn them into 'profit centres' as I and others feared. I hope my trust is not misplaced.

Photographic record here (off site link)

So another year comes to an end and its time to wish anyone who stumbles into this blog –

A VERY HAPPY HOLIDAY AND VIRUS FREE NEW YEAR 2021!

Enterprise in adversity

The steady growth in significant changes around Battlefield (a.k.a. City Stadium) that enhanced its survival as much as anything else has been placed into reverse by a pandemic and consequent shut downs. Whilst the benefits of fewer cars on the roads and public movement to wildlife in our city have been noted by many and reported widely, the cost to local, frequently very community orientated, enterprises has been severe. The outlook for their survival must be grim, the level of disappointment that so much personal time and effort is jeopardised, great.

The appearance of several small enterprises stimulated by the availability of quirky properties that no one else thought of monetising – yet – and a much increased local population of the young and the young-ish in what was always a 'hidden gem' of interesting history and possibilities along the Ouseburn Valley, not least precious inner city green space in a networked corridor*, has led to much that is good for the future in a short time. This would not have happened had the former paint factory in Shieldfield had been developed for unwanted office blocks and the not-really-open-space City Stadium had been spread with tarmac for car parks, as was suggested at the end of the last century by our ever compliant with corporate interests Labour Council. Come the last ten years and the prospects for this area have been transformed mostly by the enterprise of groups and individuals, co-ops and single traders with energy. Now something so small we need a powerful electron microscope to see it has brought this to a sudden halt. It made stop for some time, if not for good.

We have to stay the course. I can't believe 'this is it' for all that creative drive. It's not hope we require but conviction. I am sure tomorrow will come.

Meanwhile, a salute to some** small (and couple not so small) local enterprises who have and are making a difference. I left out the Lower Ouseburn in this survey, since that is mostly more 'mature' and businesses there have put down roots. Here's to some of the new comers. I wish them well.

Coal Yard. Micro brewery cum leisure facility 

in an 'interesting' spot

between Byker and Battlefield

Don't know much about this one. But I like the use of space

That is what I call making yourself stand out! Stepney Bank

A great building that stands surrounded
by off shore financed student dwellings

Ernest's. The 'old hand' here and still going – thankfully

The Biscuit Factory. Like it or not, a key player in

confounding the City Planner's disregard for Shieldfield.

Wonderful views over the 'Valley' from here.

The Garage. I should go more. I love the sheer eccentricity; 

it's transformed a very dull corner of Shieldfield

Someone complained about the 'hard standing'.

I like a gravel parking space. Great banter with these blokes

The Star and Shadow. 
Given time this co-op can be as big a transformer of attitudes 

towards the Shieldfield area as the Biscuit Factory was two decades before

* Typically, a City Council National Heritage Lottery Fund award for money to develop the string of parks down the Ouseburn from South Gosforth omitted 'Battlefield'. This was because the City Planners wanted to 'do something with it' – i.e hand it over to private 'developers', one kind of snake oil salespeople or another. Schemes to make someone living in tax haven far way even wealthier came and went. Now I think the future looks secure for this piece of blessed green space, but never take your eye off the City Planners. Ever.

** If I have left anyone out please get in touch. E-mail link in sidebar.

 

I am impressed. Perhaps the worst time since 1939 to try to start up a business but The Old Coal Yard have ambition that is commendable. I have watched this enterprise grow from frankly unpromising prospects in the 'no person's land' between 'Battlefield' and Byker Bridge, but I have along the way marvelled at the energy and creative drive to turn what was once a scrap yard into first a micro brewery and now something else moving beyond. There have been a few such moves in the last decade, building on transformed spaces and opportunities .

It's what we need now more than ever.

Time for this blog to make a survey of 'Creative Battlefield'!