Council rejects call to abandon 'pipe dream' Gateshead Quays vision after years of delay
Council bosses have rejected a call to abandon the stalled vision for a “world class” arena and international conference centre on the Gateshead Quayside.
Serious doubt has surrounded the flagship development for years, after the project’s costs spiralled far above the original £260 million estimate.
Construction of the new riverside destination is still yet to start on what is a prime plot of land between the Glasshouse music centre and Baltic art gallery, with the North East mayor’s office stepping in last year to launch a review of the scheme alongside Gateshead Council.
Councillors heard on Monday morning that negotiations over the site’s future are at a “very delicate” stage but that the council’s development partner, Ask:PATRIZIA, is still on board and “confident” in the regeneration blueprint.
Gateshead Council director Anneliese Hutchinson told a scrutiny committee that work was still going on with the North East Combined Authority to prove the business case for the project, but that bosses were still a “few months away” from making an announcement.
But Liberal Democrat opposition leader Ron Beadle questioned how Manchester’s Co-Op Live Arena had been announced, built, and opened in around four years when the Gateshead Quays vision has now been in the works since 2018.
Calling for the “pipe dream” project to be scrapped, Coun Beadle said: “We cannot attribute the failure of the Quays project to external factors when other authorities have delivered similar projects in half the time, assuming that we manage to deliver this later this month – which is not going to happen. We no longer have confidence in this project and we believe consideration should be given to residential development on this site and that this pipe dream should now be abandoned.”
Council officers replied that the Co-Op Live was a substantially different scheme as it was not at all publicly funded, instead being backed by the City Football Group and American firm OVG.
Labour councillors on the committee warned that walking away from the Quays vision now would damage the town’s reputation with investors and that giving the site over to housing would deliver little benefit to Gateshead aside from council tax revenue, saying that a more varied scheme was required to support the transformation of the town centre.
Council leader Martin Gannon accused the Lib Dems of having also opposed things like the Angel of the North and the Sage, since rebranded as the Glasshouse.
He added: “We remain ambitious as a council. We want the very best for Gateshead and the people of Gateshead and the wider regional economy. Investing in that site is correct. The investment we have in £20 million for the car park, we have invested in the road and infrastructure for the site, we have invested in the land form and preparing the site for development, and the energy… this is about projecting to the world that Gateshead is the place to invest in, we have confidence, we have ambition, and I am sorry that you don’t share it.”
Further doubt was cast over the prospect of opening a 12,500-capacity arena in Gateshead when Legends Global, operator of Newcastle’s Utilita Arena, announced plans to invest £65 million to upgrade that site on the opposite side of the Tyne.
The new arena was meant to act as a replacement for the Newcastle venue.
Ms Hutchinson told Monday’s meeting of Gateshead Council’s Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee that it “makes business sense” for Legends Global to put money into improving an outdated venue, but that she could not comment on what implications it might have for Gateshead.
In January 2023, it was stated that the estimated cost of the arena and conference development had jumped from an original £260 million to more than £350 million, a figure that is understood to have subsequently risen further. The impact of Covid-19, Brexit, the war in Ukraine, and inflation hitting the construction industry have all been blamed for the price rises.