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Issue Date: 22 October 2007
Bus Tour Gives Gateshead Residents Big Ideas
Local people have been given the chance to design their own neighbourhood – from scratch!
Residents from Gateshead have been touring the North East recently to take a close look at some of the new housing in the region – and decide whether those designs would be worth considering for Gateshead.
As part of the regeneration of the Bensham, Felling and Teams, Gateshead Council has already committed itself to giving local people the opportunity to help design the new family homes and improve their neighbourhood.
The council has commissioned Planning Aid North to give a group of 50 or more local people a crash course in urban design to give them the ability to objectively assess a place’s qualities and weaknesses, and to identify what makes a great place to live.
Local residents recently went on the second stage of the course - a bus tour of housing developments at Newcastle’s Great Park, Grove Park in Gosforth, Walker riverside, Westoe Colliery in South Shields and Highgate in Durham so they could look around and examine new housing to see good urban design.
Councillor David Napier, Cabinet spokesman for Safer, Stronger Communities, says: “We have made it clear from the start that we felt it was important for local people to feel involved in decisions taken about their area.”
“Recruiting local people to actually help design their own neighbourhood is the obvious extension to this.
“Last week-end’s bus tours where extremely well received by local residents, many of whom asked lots of questions and made copious notes. But that was the easy bit! We’ll now be expecting them to play a part in future discussions about the design of new housing in their areas. I’m sure they will have a lot to bring to the discussions and I look forward to hearing what they have got to say.”