Forth Yards, A levels, local by-elections
The Government has approved a £121.8m business case for the development of the Forth Yards site at the rear of Newcastle Central Station.
It's a project led by Homes England, partnering with the North East Combined Authority, the city council and Network Rail.
It's billed as the last significant brownfield site in the city, and could mean a couple of thousand new homes, along with the other things like retail and commercial space which go with mixed-use neighbourhoods.
It's a difficult site for a few reasons - chiefly, a large chunk of the land around there was a lead works, and so requires substantial remediation.
But, there's also the physical and perceived barrier of the station itself - everything beyond it feels detached from the centre of the city, and difficult to access.
There are longstanding plans for additional entrances to the station, including one by the Centre for Life and one which opens onto the Crown Plaza.
These would turn the barrier into a proper interchange, and also solve some accessibility issues to mainline platforms and the metro through including some tunnels.
This project hopefully makes all of that viable, showcasing public sector partners backing a project and starting to deal with the things which needs sorting to make development work.
The Gov.uk story makes a plea for private sector developers to get in touch, and the whole thing is indicative of a fairly proactive approach from Homes England.
However, Forth Yards as the final brownfield site in Newcastle tells you brownfield isn’t going to fix the nation's housing crisis.
Bus Strikes
I was going to write about bus strikes, but the walkout by Stagecoach drivers has been called off while Unite members review a new pay offer.
So, I'll briefly say being a bus driver is a tough job - as well as driving professionally, you're also in a customer service role, a corporate ambassador, and you're dealing with some extremely vulnerable members of the public.
It's a combination of skills which you don't find everywhere, and there's a lot of time and training which goes into it.
They deserve to be paid well, and those in the North East deserve to be paid what those elsewhere in the country earn.
Bus franchising, where the Combined Authority will decide on routes and fares, and dictate service quality, will fundamentally change how services are run in the region in coming years - but, we'll still need bus operators to run the services.
A Level Results Gap
The North East is the only English region not to see A Level results improve since the pre-pandemic baseline.
One in three students in London are getting A or A* grades (up to 32% from 27% in 2019), and university acceptance is high as a result, while in the North East it's below one in four.
The North East has been overtaken by the East and West Midlands in the last five years.
The article linked above has a quote from the Sutton Trust, pointing out university remains the best route to social mobility, but that regional divides are getting worse, not better.
The local politics of Newcastle
The Green Party won a council by-election in the Newcastle ward of South Jesmond, taking the seat from Labour.
The winning candidate was Dr Sarah Peters, an NHS doctor who previously stood for the Greens in South Jesmond in the 2024 locals (coming 3rd), and in Newcastle North at the last General Election.
Back in 2024, Labour had 45 out of 78 seats on the council, and now it's on 37. Lots of those went with the Labour group splintering into independents (who now make up 12 seats). It had already shed a couple of seats from 2023 before that point.
Peters only needed to add 100 and something votes to her 2024 result to take the seat, as turnout was down and Labour’s vote share collapsed to third. The Lib Dems were a strong second.
Labour’s internal politics are the b-plot to this, the a-plot being the Greens are well organised, and have had success recently in Newcastle, especially where they can highlight local environmental and transport issues.
The c-plot is where this sits in the national political picture, and the local version of the is that former North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll thinks this is his route back into politics.
Getting in touch
Thanks all for now, you can find me on arlen@arlenpettitt.co.uk.