Leader's blog - Thursday 12 June

Highlights: 

• Resident Survey Launch Gateshead Council is launching a new resident survey to gather feedback on service priorities. 

• High Street Regeneration Major redevelopment planned for the south end of Gateshead High Street, including property acquisition and demolition. 

• Old Town Hall Redevelopment Partnership with Capital and Centric to repurpose the historic Grade II listed building. 

• In 2023/24 an additional £2 million investment was allocated to to improve our local environment - this has been maintained to help keep Gateshead tidy.

Transcript

Good day and thank you for taking the time to watch this video. 

Gateshead Council, your council, we are public servants. We are here to serve the people of Gateshead, and that's why we want to hear your views about council services. 
 
You know the economic environment that we operate in, you know the level of reductions that was taken from central government. But the services that we provide, whether it's refuse collection, the quality of the local environment, adult social care, children's services, housing services, a range of services that we provide are vital to the people of Gateshead. 
 
We are about to start, we're constantly listening to people, of course, but we're about to start a new residents survey that will be conducted online. It will be in libraries, it will be in all kinds of council establishments.  

What we want to hear is your views, it is your council and we want to respond to the people of Gateshead, how you would like us to prioritise and which priorities you would like to see pushed forward for the people of Gateshead.  
 
Second point I want to very quickly cover is the ongoing work in terms of the regeneration of central Gateshead. The south end of the High Street, which has been in decline for probably the last 30-40 years. The council is acquiring all of those properties. 
 
We will be very shortly demolishing some of the properties that we have acquired. There are one or two that we may have to pursue through compulsory purchase. 
 
However, when the site is cleared, we will be engaging with the developer and developing the south end of the High Street. So I expect that to move quite quickly and it's also of course linked with the work which will take place in terms of removal of the flyover. 

Can I also mention the redevelopment of the Old Town Hall? You will have seen coverage in the media. The Town Hall, which Gateshead Council vacated in 1987 when we moved to the new Civic Centre, of course hasn't had a purpose as a civic building for many years. 

It's a much loved building. It's a really significant Grade 2 listed building so we want to secure it's future. We have joined in partnership with a new developer, Capital and Centric. 

They have a fabulous track record in terms of renovating and repurposing heritage buildings and there is a proposition to redevelop the whole of that site, but it'll also bring life into that area that links to the High Street and also links to the the Railway Quarter. 

So that's significant investment as part of the redevelopment of the whole of the centre of Gateshead.  

And the last point I'd like to cover is the significant investment that the council, in really difficult financial circumstances, has managed to put into what we call environmental services.  

That's about street cleansing, dealing with fly tipping and littering and cleaning the streets of Gateshead, making it an attractive place to live and to encourage people to move into Gateshead and to invest in Gateshead. In very difficult financial circumstances, you told us really powerfully, when we listened to the people of Gateshead, that we needed to do more. 
 
So two years ago we invested, increased the amount of money that's spent in that area by £2m. 
That was also put in last year and we'll continue to make that investment and we'll make that investment going forward. So that's an additional £2m every single year. 
 
You will have seen some improvement. You know the quality of the environment is improving. 
 
We are increasing our enforcement, part of that is making sure that people who aren't doing the right thing, who don't take their bin in, who litter the streets or who are causing damage to the environment, those people will be effectively prosecuted. 
 
So want to discourage bad behaviour, want to encourage good behaviour, but the Council has also taken a much more active role in improving the quality of the local environment.