How far has the city evolved to become ‘Brasilia of the North’?
What have 60 years of regeneration plans achieved in Newcastle? asks the man who was at the centre of it all. TONY HENDERSON reports
NEWCASTLE has never stood still. It has grown and evolved from its origins as a Roman fort to Norman castle, medieval walled town, the sweeping classical developments of Richard Grainger and the vigorous efforts of the Victorians.
Today, the process continues, with the latest transformation centred on the Pilgrim Quarter, the swathe of land off Pilgrim Street.
All have had a lasting impact, and not least the Brasilia of the North vision of T Dan Smith, who became leader of the city council in 1960.
The question posed by another former city council leader, Tony Flynn, is to what extent was the Brasilia quest realised?
Now a city guide, Tony has now written a pocket-sized book, in the shape of a walking tour, which takes in the locations embraced by the Brasilia dream. Titled The Brasilia of the North: Sixty Years of Regeneration, it leaves the verdict up to the reader/walker.
As if to prove that it is, in fact a small world, Tony notes that Brazilian architect Lucio Costa, the town planner of Brasilia, was educated at Newcastle’s Royal Grammar School.
Tony Flynn is well placed to ask
the Brasilia question. He was a member of the city council for 24 years, deputy leader under Sir Jeremy Beecham and leader from 1994 to 2004.
He was also part of three decisionmaking bodies involved in the city’s renewal. He was a board member of Tyne and Wear development Corporation which revitalised the Quayside, chaired the Granger Town Project that rescued Newcastle’s Georgian centre, and was a founder member of the Newcastle and Gateshead Initiative.
For five years he was also a neighbour of T Dan Smith and his local councillor in Spital Tongues.
“We had many discussions about the city,” says Tony.
“Smith is attributed with the quote that he intended to transform Newcastle into the Brasilia of the North, meaning that Newcastle would become a modern city that would be the envy of the world.
“Radical change is inherently divisive so I leave it to the reader to decide whether this plan was successfully implemented.”
To set the scene. In the 1950s Newcastle was mired in post-war austerity. It needed a boost, and a big one.
In 1961 and 1963 Smith and his director of planning Wilfred Burns drew up development plans, which envisaged the demolition of many areas of old terraced housing, to be replaced by blocks of flats.
Car ownership in Britain had increased from two million in 1950 to nine million in 1961 and the forecast was gridlock unless action was taken.
Under Newcastle’s development strategy, the new blocks of flats areas would be linked by an expanded road network, giving priority to traffic and separating pedestrians on to walkways,.
There were proposals for innercity motorways, an American-style retail mall, a Civic Centre and an education quarter based on Newcastle University and Newcastle Polytechnic, now Northumbria University.
T Dan Smith stood down after five years of council leadership in 1965 to become the government appointed chair of the Northern Economic Planning Committee, but became embroiled with the architect John Paulson and pleaded guilty to an offence of bribery before Leeds Crown Court and was sentenced to six years imprisonment in 1974.
Burns had left Newcastle in 1968 to be chief planner at the Ministry of Housing.
Central, East and West motorways had been planned. Tony says: “If all three had been built, the centre of the city would have looked like a concrete jungle with motorways zig zagging around the central core.
The motorway proposals were hotly contested by protestors who formed the Save our City from Environmental Mess (SOCEM) organisation.
The East Motorway became controversial particularly in Jesmond, where road plans involved parks, school playing fields and demolishing houses, says Tony.
Only a third of the motorway scheme became reality – the Central Motorway which was completed in 1973, allowing traffic to bypass the city centre.
“Public pressure prevented the town being dominated by the car,” says Tony.
Another major undertaking was the Civic Centre, which is now grade II-star listed.
It was designed and built by the City Architect George Kenyon between 1956 and 1968.
“It is generally considered to be a remarkable and innovative building. Unlike many of the buildings of the 1960s it was not Brutalist in style,” says Tony.
It was seen as a departure from the traditional town hall, with four blocks grouped around a central lawn suggesting a monastic cloister and the carillon tower reflecting the lantern tower of St Nicholas Cathedral.
The Education Quarter of Newcastle and Northumbria universities now totals 55,000 students.
Northumberland Street was not only the city’s main shopping attraction but was also part of the A1 - hard to believe now that it is pedestrianised.
In 1976 the Eldon Square shopping centre was opened
with 156 units, followed four years later by the Metro system which deposited shoppers at the mall’s doors. A casualty of the shopping centre was John Dobson’s 1825 Old Eldon Square.
“It is generally thought to be a masterpiece of Georgian architecture,” says Tony.
Between 1835 and 1840, the developer Richard Grainger built his residential and commercial centre in the middle of Newcastle in the classical style.
But as shopping migrated to Eldon Square, the soot-blackened Grainger buildings fell into decline, with over half of its listed buildings in danger of collapse and a million square feet of office space was empty.
The Grainger Town Project came to the rescue, with £360m being spent between 1997 and 2003 to save what is now one of the city’s finest assets.
John Dobson’s work suffered again when his impressive Royal Arcade of 1831-32, which housed shops, offices, post office, auction rooms and a vapour baths was swept away to make room for Swan House.on its roundabout.
It housed the Post Office, British Telecom,
and then flats and was renamed 55 Degrees North.
“As you enter the city over the Tyne Bridge it is the first building you see,. There is an ongoing debate about whether Swan House is a landmark building or an eyesore,” says Tony.
“The Royal Arcade, like Old Eldon Square, was demolished as a result of what conservationists believed to be vandalism.
“The outcry contributed to the growing demand to conserve the historic core of Grainger’s classical town and stop further motorway expansion.”
The walk winds up with the regeneration of Newcastle’s East Quayside, its Law Courts building, the Millennium Bridge and Gateshead’s Baltic arts centre and Sage building.
So it’s back to the debate over Smith’s Brasilia vision. But, says Tony, one thing is for sure.
“All regeneration in the city centre since has been a response and a reaction to that ‘vision’”.
■ The Brasilia of the North: Sixty Years of Regeneration. By Tony Flynn. Tyne Bridge Publishing. £7.99.