City leaders have pledged action to revitalise a run-down corner of Newcastle that has waited years for a promised regeneration, under a major new housebuilding vision.

Newcastle City Council signed off on a new vision this week to get plans to build 15,000 new homes built on Tyneside by 2036, including 1,500 council houses.

That masterplan will include big new developments planned on the Forth Yards area to the west of the city centre and the Health Innovation Neighbourhood being built at the former general hospital site.

The site of the demolished Hexham House in Duncan Street, Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne | LDRS

placeholder image — The site of the demolished Hexham House in Duncan Street, Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne | LDRS

But Civic Centre bosses have promised tangible progress on a series of priority sites within the next three years.

Chief among those will be in Walker, where 451 new homes are earmarked for areas along Walker Road, Pottery Bank and Church Walk.

That includes around 60 on the site of the demolished Hexham House and Titan House tower blocks and the derelict Church Walk shopping centre, which is waiting to be torn down.

Plans to revitalise that area were first unveiled in summer 2018, but it took more than six years for Hexham House to finally be removed from the east end skyline via a controlled explosion in 2024.

Vicky McDermott, the council’s director of housing and communities, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that Walker would “demonstrate tangibly that you can see progress happening, can see homes being built” towards the 2036 aim.

She added: “Walker is one of our most connected communities and is a really strong community. For me it is about how we enhance and support that,

“Coming alongside the work we are undertaking in the park and the Pride in Place [£20 million investment over 10 years], we have a bit of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to be able to do something really impactful for the people who live in Walker.”

315 new homes for private sale and 136 new affordable and social homes are planned in Walker, with £4.7 million of funding expected to come from the North East Combined Authority.

A further £2.5 million will be put towards a number of smaller building sites in Denton, Newbiggin Hall, Slatyford and Kenton within the next three years.

Overall, “phase one” of the council’s new housing plan should deliver 351 market rate homes and 226 council houses. All of the social housing pledged in that “will be ready for occupation by March 2029”, the council said.

At a cabinet meeting on Monday, Lib Dem opposition councillors expressed concern that the plan would only deliver an average 150 council houses a year over the next ten years.

The group’s deputy leader, Peter Lovatt, claimed it was “simply insufficient to get Newcastle delivering the council houses we need”.

Labour council leader Karen Kilgour said her administration was “setting ambitious targets to deliver things that really matter for communities”.

She agreed that 1,500 council homes “won’t be enough” to resolve the city’s housing crisis, but said that the council had to start somewhere and that its plans also included ensuring the authority’s existing vacant properties can be brought back into good condition.