Council chiefs are hoping to rid a Newcastle high street of its unwanted reputation as the UK’s worst.
Shields Road in Byker has been named multiple times as Britain’s least vibrant retail destination over recent years. But city bosses are hoping that a new regeneration programme can help the East End high street shed that damaging reputation.
Shields Road is one of five locations around Byker, Heaton, and Walker where Newcastle City Council is handing out grants to small businesses and community groups to help revitalise their area. A £2.8m pilot project was launched earlier this year in the hope of bringing empty shops back into use, funding new public art and green spaces, and staging local festivals and other community events.
Jen Hartley, the council’s head of economic development, told councillors on Monday that removing Shields Road’s unfortunate label as the UK’s worst high street was a “big message” behind the project. She added: “A good outcome would be to attract further private and public sector funding to this, and to have a revitalisation of spaces and properties that residents will use.
“I think not being rated as the UK’s worst high street would be really great. If that can go somewhere else in the country, I would be very happy with that.
“We are monitoring new jobs and safeguarded jobs, but it is really about what residents can see. If we were to survey people at the end and they felt a greater sense of pride and welcoming and safety in their areas and told us they were using them more, that would be a success for me.”
The other streets benefiting from the programme, which has grants worth up to £25,000 available for empty properties and up to £10,000 for events, are Chillingham Road, Heaton Road, Heaton Park Road, and Welbeck Road. Ms Hartley told the council’s economy, jobs and skills scrutiny committee that, since launching in March, the funding had already helped towards the first Byker Arts Festival that will be held this summer.
Two empty buildings have been brought back into use so far and the council is said to be “definitely making headway” with landlords sitting on other vacant sites. Ms Hartley added that she hoped that the improvements would help generate a renewed sense of “civic pride” in the East End that will encourage people to play their part in keeping the area looking nice.
She said: “It is not about big, shiny buildings but user-friendly spaces that the community can enjoy and will allow people to feel safe and welcome. We know that, post-Covid, people are wanting to shop locally and that is something we have taken on board.”
Labour councillor Stephen Lambert urged authority bosses to use plain, simple language when trying to get residents on board with the idea. Expressing his support for revitalising some of the most deprived wards in Newcastle, he added that middle class parts of the city should not have a “monopoly” on pleasant public spaces.
It is hoped that the high street regeneration programme can be rolled out to other areas too, with Adelaide Terrace in the West End having been specifically mentioned. The current scheme has been funded by a £1.9m cash injection from the North of Tyne Combined Authority, plus a further £900,000 from the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
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