Council bosses insist that a new arena and conference centre on the Gateshead Quayside will be built, despite fears that the inflation crisis could scupper critical projects across the country.
Gateshead Council recently launched a second attempt at securing £20m of levelling up funding from the government after seeing costs for the huge riverside complex, which will be known as The Sage, jump substantially.
Local authority leader Martin Gannon was quoted in The Times on Tuesday as saying the £300m scheme could not go ahead without extra funding due to the rising cost of materials, especially steel, and that double-digit inflation was “absolutely disastrous for a construction project”. Former Newcastle United chairman Sir John Hall also told the newspaper that the huge development must not be left “high and dry”.
