ASPIRE TO MOVE HQ INTO ‘HEART OF TOWN’
Ninety apartments also planned on Ryecroft site
ONE of the region’s biggest housing associations is to move its HQ into a town centre as part of major regeneration plans.
Newcastle’s Ryecroft site – which is currently home to a car park – is due to be transformed through a multi-million redevelopment.
It will include a new ‘collaboration hub’, featuring up to 90 apartments for the over-55s, work and social spaces, and a new base for We Are Aspire.
The group, which oversees Aspire Housing, apprenticeships provider Achieve Training and the Realise charity, will relocate from The Brampton.
The first phase involves demolishing Newcastle Borough Council’s old civic offices, next to the car park, to make way for the new facilities. Funding to get the project underway has come from the Government’s Future High Streets Fund.
Sinéad Butters, group chief executive of Aspire Housing, said: “We intend to transform the Ryecroft site and help to drive the regeneration of our town centre, bringing additional footfall and energy to the heart of Newcastle.
“We’re looking to create an exemplar net zero development. A building which will greatly reduce our carbon footprint, help to sustain our local environment and vastly improve the site and its surroundings with the highest design standards.”
The new hub is one of several buildings planned for Ryecroft
and the wider town centre.
Altogether, there could be more than 200 new homes built, along with offices, shops and a 400-space multi-storey car park.
Council leader Simon Tagg welcomed the partnership with We Are Aspire.
He said: “This is a great next step in the development of the Ryecroft area of Newcastle. Aspire are as committed to the transformation of our town centre as much as the council and they share our visions.
“With our aim for a more people-friendly and vibrant town centre, it’s vital that the
organisation remains in the heart of Newcastle.”
Aspire Housing manages around 9,000 homes in Staffordshire and Cheshire.
Architectural and urban design company Feildon Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBS) has been appointed to support the design of the collaboration hub.
It is one of several schemes with Aspire that FCBS is also involved in including the redevelopment of the former Zanzibar nightclub site off Brunswick Street. That site was acquired by Aspire back in 2020 and will be used for ‘community living’ homes.