Newcastle city centre has died a death over the past 18 months. I know, because I’ve been coming into the Monument area every single day to go to work, throughout the pandemic. For the first few months it was like a greyish ghost town until almost at once, Northumberland street was once again deluged with people as NE1 street marshals tried to shuffle them into some sort of one-way pedestrian system.
And then the bars reopened. It was just like before when gaggles of hens and an annoyance of stag parties would start to pepper the streets chanting, squealing, and drinking from as early as Friday lunchtime every weekend. I’ll admit, I was happy to see them. It felt normal. It felt rowdy. It felt as though people were getting the release they had so desperately needed after having our lifestyles dampened and shut-in for so long.
But just as this normality started to return, we were told that we had to vacate our business premises. The asset managers wanted to take it back over. Commercial Union House, which is run by a CIC called Orbis Community, has become a cultural hub for the region with its patchwork of tenants and committed and hands-on directors - Jonpaul Kirvan, Paul Stone and Christopher Yeats (Paul and Chris run the iconic Vane art gallery).
We always knew this would happen eventually, and the directors of our building who manage us all as tenants agreed that we had had a good run. What we didn’t envisage was the difficulty with which we would be rehomed.
Over 600 artists, businesses, craftspeople, charities, support groups, and educational associations are housed in our space. Sure, it looms over Pilgrim street like an angry brutalist door-stop, but it has felt like home for the past few years as I’ve set up my businesses - and even more so now that I do my university work from there too. It was the space that gave me the room and the facilities I needed to turn my business from a hobby into something more (we turned over £45k+ in 2019 and are set to grow this year by about 25% - not bad given we are entirely self-funded) and launch a new one. I’ve found myself defending its architecture and importance to Uber drivers who comment on how much of an ‘eyesore’ it is. People who know the building and who have been inside it for events, exhibitions, openings, lessons, and experiences see its value and its importance up here - not just to the creative and cultural community - but to everyone who stumbles upon it. I am sure I am not the only one saying ‘sure, it may be ugly, but on the inside, it’s brilliant’ to its’s detractors.
Buildings across the city centre have been earmarked for hotel developments, high-end apartment blocks and (my personal favourite given the mass exodus COVID-19 has caused) luxury student accommodation. We seem to be designing the city centre for University students (with money) and tourism. Sure, that makes sense, doesn’t it? We have two huge Universities within half a mile of each other and a bustling night-time economy of domestic tourists who come here to party. Except for last year has shown that we can rely on neither.
The 24hr economy depends on clubs, bars, and pubs being able to open up and maximise capacity. It also relies heavily on the student body being on-site. This past year has seen extended periods of time where neither has been possible.
Although there have been some independent success stories, the entertainment venues around town are still mostly operated by larger business groups. The branding always tries to look quaint, indie, and quirky, but often you end up finding out that it is owned by XYZ Group or a new site of an already national chain. There are a few names that crop up again and again locally that are hard to escape, particularly within the NE1 catchment area.
The Stack complex is a good example of a project that was sold to local residents as being a catalyst for independent retail in the city centre. A great idea, with its prime location and East-London feel. Instead, astronomical rents and service charges (that were never waived throughout the pandemic in spite of mandated closures) saw a huge amount of those small businesses fold and become indebted to the owners. Units lay vacant for months. It looked awful. It actually looked embarrassing.
What to do? I suppose the owners should just co-opt the empty units for their existing brands. May as well, it looks better than leaving them unused. Except for that is exactly how we have ended up with a monolithic retail space (bar a handful of food start-ups who have done well from the arrangement) that has done next to nothing to diversify the retail landscape of the city centre. You could even go as far as to say that it has harmed small businesses that wanted to take the next step towards growth and establishing a brick-and-mortar presence - and now find themselves going to court and fighting against mounting debts instead.
The Grainger Market in the centre of town
Retail units around the centre sit empty and dusty. There aren’t enough incentives to get smaller businesses in. I viewed premises that was advertised at the reasonable cost of £8000 per annum - aside from the fact it was a basement with no windows. Towards the end of the viewing, I was informed that there was a 30% service charge on top of that, and don’t forget the rates and utilities. The building was hardly state-of-the-art. What services would they be charging for? A cursory weekly vacuum of the hallway was all I could imagine. There was no CCTV system, receptionist, or common area that would have required maintaining. I asked if I could discuss this with the landlord. “Oh, he’s based in Jersey,” the agent said. Funny that.
There are the beginnings of so many creative businesses and projects here, but the creative economy can’t function if the emphasis is being put on a single area. It requires a network of sectors and spaces to spread the risk and improve efficiency through collaboration. It seems to be a given up here that creatives should simply never quit their day job… Don’t try and create sustainable employment for yourself in the creative sector. Stay in your lane. Accept the odd Arts Council grant. Give up your time and/or work for free because you love what you do. Why should we? This sector is the future. We are responsible for producing everything that makes life worth living. When we were all shut in our homes it was books, crafts, television, film, gaming, exercise and dance that we all turned to lift our spirits.
Newcastle doesn’t need another bar. Newcastle needs to nurture, appreciate and mobilise the talent and creative activity that is already happening here if it wants to reap those benefits. We have a huge amount of talent coming out of both urban Universities, and yet we lose so many to the brain drain because we have failed to do this.
Newcastle is going the way of every other regional market town. We will have a high street full of chain shops that cater to the sale of cheap and convenient goods. There will be little reason to come into town and stick around unless dinner and drinks are on the cards. We will not be the next Leeds, whose patchwork of boutiques and mixed retail spaces draw in tourists from the surrounding region who come for the whole day: to shop, visit museums, eat, drink, and wander around. It is my hope that the decision-makers at the top will start to see the value in nurturing the sole traders, small companies and social enterprises that have the potential to not only work with the community that they are in but for that community. And as businesses like END. have shown, these homegrown endeavors can end up making serious money too. But I am not sure they are quite there yet, and I am unsure of how to best shift the perspective that currently dominates.
Instead, developers will sit on empty units until they feel they can get a good enough price from a corporate client, or a local conglomerate, while the rest of us are pushed out of town and into the arms of local authorities that give a shit and recognize the need for structured support (premises, funding, hard-skills training) if we want to grow and become a creative and cultural hub for the region and perhaps even the country.
Nobody in the city centre will notice though, because they’ll be busy eating their organic hoisin duck bao buns and jalapeno-scattered deep-fried halloumi small plates. And when they get thirsty, they’ll just move on to the next bar.