Frankly, January can't come soon enough. I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to see the back of 2020, keen to start a new year with hope of vaccine efficacy and an end to lockdown restrictions.
As I write this – and several weeks before you read it, I can only hope that we have emerged from lockdown 2.0 and are heading into a brighter, more positive future. We know there is a lot to be positive about when we look ahead to what’s planned in Newcastle and the investment that is in the pipeline for the city.
Our optimism and hope is tempered by our knowledge of how tough it has been for business. Businesses, especially those in customer-facing sectors of retail, leisure and hospitality have been hard hit. After the prolonged shut down and a stop/ start opening in autumn, many would be hoping preChristmas trade would make up for lost business. Traditionally they would also be building reserves to see them through the quiet months of the new year.
Lockdown has brought into sharp relief the urgent need for all of us to support high street businesses in the run up to Christmas and beyond. We need, as individuals and groups, to do all we can to support these businesses, especially independents, keeping in mind the mantra; ‘use it or lose it’. Without our support, we risk a post-pandemic city-scape filled with empty retail spaces and the loss of independent shops, restaurants and leisure venues which give Newcastle its unique personality, vibrancy and global appeal. Even before the 2nd wave and lockdown, the UK had the third highest level of online shopping in the world, surpassed only by China and South Korea. Perhaps inevitably, online shopping became even more powerful and pervasive during the height of the pandemic. Analysts noted a peak in activity in June when online sales accounted for one third of all UK retail sales.
We have always encouraged people to make use of the city’s independent stores and restaurants but now more than ever these businesses need your support. Local shopping is for life and not just for Christmas.
We all need to support independents in every way we can. We have been encouraging people to follow local businesses on social media, like and share their posts, buy from them during lockdown via click and collect, take-aways and local delivery services. Buy gift vouchers for when they reopen, for yourself and as gifts for others. If you’ve got money to spend shop local, spend and show your support in whatever way you can.
We need people to pledge to make it Newcastle first; a Newcastle-Birthday, Christmas, Diwali and every other celebration in between, not a faceless Amazon one…
Throughout the first and 2nd lockdowns, NE1 has continued to apply pressure on the Government to use the time to plan a route out of lockdown and restrictions. We know that lockdowns don’t solve the problem, they merely buy us time. The focus now needs to be on reopening the economy and mapping out a plan for exiting lockdown and looking to the future.
Sitting just below the surface of battling the crisis there is a mass of regeneration activity in the city. Even in the midst of lockdown, plans have been moving ahead on a number of multimillion pound development schemes which will be transformational for the city. Central to this is the long-awaited redevelopment of East Pilgrim Street. After a 20 – 25 years hiatus work has finally started on the site. Over the next three to five years, the whole site is scheduled to be redeveloped delivering a massive boost to the city centre.
Plans to increase residential density are being rolled out, bringing more people to live in the heart of the city. Transforming the city centre into its own residential neighbourhood will support more, small independent businesses catering for rising numbers of local, residential customers living alongside the university campuses, commercial office space and the RVI all contributing to a vibrant and colourful city centre. Newby’s £250 million residential and mixed used development on the banks of the Tyne, on the site adjacent to the Utilita Arena, is one of these developments creating an urban village with thousands of new homes. There are also plans to convert Cale Cross House, overlooking the Tyne Bridge, from office to residential accommodation.
To support this urban redevelopment and with the backdrop of Covid, we need to develop a city with exceptional outdoor open spaces allowing people to live, work and play safely in the city centre. Work is already underway to revitalize the city centre including giving pedestrian prioritization around Blackett Street and its links to the city’s main retail core.
These plans will upgrade our public realm making it a priority for the whole city. Millions of pounds have been released by the Government through the ‘Get Building’ fund to help finance this important work.
The positive impact of public realm redevelopment and the investment opportunities it creates should not be underestimated. Take NE1’s Bigg Market regeneration project, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Newcastle City Council. As well as winning design awards, the public realm transformation has given confidence to private investors and property owners to invest in their business interests in the area which in turn unlocked some £75 million of actual and planned investment.
Current travails aside, there are strong signs of a continued renaissance in Newcastle and ample reasons for positivity about the future. Here’s to 2021 and optimism for the future.
