This may be old but I noticed on the council's website they are applying for Lottery cash to help rejuvinate Leazes Park. I thought it a bit strange. They turn down United's application to build a stadium around castle leazes which included renovation of the park - the cost to the club was an additional £15m so far to rebuild SJP instead. Now after costing the club and fans money they are begging the taxpayer for handouts for a job that would have been done for them.

Someone in the Sunday Sun last week suggested the council take over the running of NUFC, for me they are no friends of ours.

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2001

Answers

Serves the dozy barstewards right.

Their lack of vision is legendary - having lost the chance to have the entire area from the former Fenham Barracks all the way down Barrack Rd. to Strawberry Place redeveloped into a huge landscaped parkland area containing an even-sided, world-class footy stadium - they now have to go cap-in- hand to the Lottery Commision for a few million to clean up the sad neglected heap that is Leazes Park. By the end of this Millenium they might then be able to turn their attention to the even bigger mess that is the Castle Leazes area - still infected by drug-pushers, users and prostitutes.

Top decision guys - on your knees.

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2001

Well only Clarky seems to care on this one but for me it shows just how Newcastle will continue to lag behind other cities economically. Faced with the chance to help private enterprise help itself & the community it would prefer to get the begging bowl out for cetral money. If that's how they go about everything, we's ducked.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

We is ducked Dave.
With three amigos I started up a little company a year ago that has created 15 high-value R&D jobs to date. To cut a very long story short, we (sadly) finished up located in Sunderland.
The Sunderland Council bent over backwards to secure this kind of high-tech employment. The Tyneside Authorities, especially our wonderful development agency, One North East, were a sad joke. I'll say no more.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

Don't get me on about One NE, 2 weeks and six calls to get a response, I eventually embarrassed them into calling me by involving the council. Do these people actually do anything.

Five years ago I enquired about some land next to our own to house new offices & storage facilities, I was told it was earmarked for a Japanese investor, it remains as it was then and the are still being cagey about it.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

Freaky!

Read what you wrote. The council are applying for money from the LOTTERY not the taxpayers. The decision to forbid NUFCplc (a business) building on common land wasn't made by the council, the club dropped the plans because what they were proposing was ILLEGAL. Newcastle council did not support the proposal because they represent ALL of the people of the city not just NUFC fans. This actually saved the club a lot of money, as the original estimate for the Sir John Hall Metrobowl was over £100 million and would no doubt have risen.

The clubs plans for the park fall well short of what the council is planning. I said at the time that all Leazes Park needed was a spruce up, not a bloody big eyesore of a football ground plonked down in the middle of it.

Can you imagine what would have happened if the fools in charge of NUFC had got away with this. We would be saddled with twice the debt we are currently suffering, and have a half full super stadium watching an even worse team and be paying more for the privilege of having a running track.

We owe the council a big thank you.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

I certainly don't recall the proposal being dropped because it was illegal dread. I had believed it was dropped because of objections from certain action groups who could have delayed the thing indefinitely.
Further, my belief is that the Plans were actually supported by the Freemen of the City - who I believe own the land - and Northumbria Police, because of their concerns over the dump that is Castle Leazes, a piece of waste land that was, and still is, infested by drug pushers, addicts and prostitutes.

Unfortunately, all my information is anecdotal, other than in relation to the support of the Fereeman/Police - if yours is factual then I will defer to you, but right now I see no reason to be thankful for the City ditherers who I believe hadn't the balls to support the Club in pushing through a development that could be revitalised the entire area along Barrack Rd., an area that is still in need of major redevelopment and investment.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

The plans for Leazes Park were illegal in the sense that in order for a business to build upon common land, central government must grant permission. NUFCplc tried to bypass this and do a deal with Newcastle council. When the protestors insisted on taking the plans to the Secretary of State, the club had to give up.

The council really had no choice unless it wanted to be seen as completely under the thumb of Cameron Hall Developments. I don't see how they can be accused of lack of vision just because they didn't want a dirty great football ground/shopping complex built in the centre of a park and residential district.

Look around the Golden City at the Millenium Bridge(bought with proceeds from what Freaky calls the begging bowl), the quayside, the boulevard, Northumberland Street, the Centre for Life etc. Public building projects for the public not the madcap plans of one egotistical businessman.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

"...I don't see how they can be accused of lack of vision just because they didn't want a dirty great football ground/shopping complex built in the centre of a park and residential district".

Is that not what they have anyway?

I'll gladly accept your greater knowledge of the planning application dread, but can you explain what these visionaries you are defending achieved in place of the above?
They got a dirty great, lop-sided monstrosity, that should never ever have been given planning approval, next to a semi-derelict park that they can't afford to maintain never mind upgrade, next to a large piece of waste ground that has been totally detached of the Town Moor for countless decades.

That is what they have achieved in place of a very large, integrated landscaped area all the way from Fenham Barracks to Gallowgate, including extensive parkland and a beautiful, even-sided, football stadium that would have been partially sunk into the surrounding area such it didn't stick up like a whacking great carbuncle on the skyline.

That's what these goons could have had with just a little vision.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

Dread! I really can't believe your attitude.

The council may be applying for money from the LOTTERY not the taxpayers, this is true but nevertheless, if lottery money is diverted to touching up Leazes Park, taxpayers have to pay for other projects that don't get the lottery money.

The way I understood it is the same a Clarky, The Freemen weren't against it but the council kept giving a few go-gooders who haven't got anything bettter to do a platform to air their outdated inward looking views.

Newcastle city council did not support the proposal because they cannot cope with progress. Whilst they represent ALL of the people of the city not just NUFC fans they put obsticles in the way of all business proposals so business is forced to look elsewhere, leaving all the people worse off, not just NUFC fans.

This did not save the club money, if cost more to redevelop SJP than the cost of the new stadium itself, only the whole project (which inluded remodeling SJP to be a sports venue) was over £100 million. Furthermore, the capacity would be higher with expansion a possibility. Expansion to even up SJP would cost a fortune now whilst some consider it impossible, the latest in a long line of the council standing in the way of the club.

The clubs plans for the park would have had the effect of linking the park to the city, regenerating Barrack foad, Fenham etc & would last. The council's plan will leave it looking good for a year or two & then go back to a no-mans land. As for an eyesore of a football ground, the plans eyesore were of a stunning arena to rival the San Siro (which is in a park I believe)

I can only imagine if NUFC had got this facility, no interuption to fans whilst rebuilding, no SOS problem, less outlay, a better squad?

The council should be sued for lost revenue over the years.

Looking around the Golden City at the impressive Millenium Bridge I think it's impressive but does it create wealth or just a short cut to the Boat from the pitcher & piano? The quayside of course was developed by a quango taken out of the hands of the council and just goes to show what can be done in reletively short period of time. The boulevard is just a road & why it had to renamed to sound American? I do not know. The Centre for Life may be nice but deos it benefit the city in the long term? How much money does it attract? Wouldn't the city have benefitted from a similar sized building in the centre of the city that housed the HO of a large firm? It would employ more & create more wealth. Public building projects are a complete waste of money, you may have joined in with the "no business on the moor" campaigners but if Clarky's story is typical there will be No business in the Toon & we'll be left with a city of hell holes like Shields road or Wallsend Pricinct.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

.... and, out if interest, the stunning Millenium Bridge is a Gateshead Council project that had bog all to do with Newcastle's wise men. Just thought I'd mention it in passing.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

Just sptted this, The Love Parade dance music festival will go ahead in Newcastle after city councillors finally agreed to grant a licence for the event.

Members of the council's licensing committee approved the application from organisers SFX this afternoon (Tuesday), but attached a number of conditions to the public entertainment licence.

One condition is the event must finish at 11 pm & noise levels ruduced. Here's a national event most cities would give thier right arm for & our council are trying to ruin. Last year's event in Leeds finished at 5am and Leeds is now the recognised dance capital of the North. Leeds is also the fastest growing city in Britain - no guessing who has the more Liberal council.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

Don't get me started on the bloody Love Parade, most cities wouldn't touch it with a bargepole after the travesty at Leeds. If a bunch of hippy chix want to get drugged up and dance till 5am then they should go to a club and not a public park. I'm sure most of them wish they had as it pissed down all day. Most of the residents of Leeds above the age of 16 were dead set against the horrible shambles. Newcastle Council does right to chase them out.

The reasons behind Leeds' growth rate are economic and cannot really compare with Newcastle. Leeds is at the centre of an enormous urban sprawl whereas the toon is more isolated for one thing.

Going around Newcastle these days I don't see any signs of a city in decline, far from it, even Wallsend and Shields Road are getting a spruce up.

As for the Sir John Hall Metrobowl, I have always believed that NUFCplc only came up with the proposals to blackmail the Council into agreeing to the extension of SJP. If you like the exterior of modern football stadia then fine, to most they are an eyesore. The plans also called for a separate ice rink and a shopping/office centre incorporated into the stadium. If this was proposed in the centre of any other city it would not have even passed the first stage.

I'm old fashioned I like my parks to be full of old trees and grass and flowers and children playing, that sort of stuff. Not brick 'n' steel offices and a teletubby style landscape project. Incidentally does anyone know who was going to maintain this new park? Who was going to provide security, gardeners, joiners, plumbers, year after year?

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2001

If you want to party go to a club not a park? what was the hoppings all about in the past then?

The reasons behind Leeds' growth rate ARE economic that's my point. It certainly can be conpared with Newcastle, Leeds as a city has helped itself to be business friendly, Newcastle on the other hand has not. Sure Newcastle is geographically isolated but has good links with Edinburgh & London, an airport that wants to expand (oh yes it faces planning problems) and a decent sized port without anything to exprt/ import. Leeds is hardly an enormous urban sprawl it has the penines to the west, moors to the north, no less isolated that Newcastle.

Wallsend and Shields Road are an example of sprucing a place up with no substance.

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2001

you may like parks to be full of old trees and grass and flowers and children playing, that sort of stuff, I didn't see charvers, muggers & whores listed in your park. I like to run around Castle Leazes & the Town moor, it'd be a hell of a lot more interesting if there was an impressive stadium at the heart. In addition, a stadium would have emplolyed surveyours, civil engineers, builders etc. A little more skilled the security guards & gardners I'd say.

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2001