Curly's Corner Shop, the blog!

Meeting in the Customs House

One of the interesting items coming up on the horizon for South Shields is the much heralded and planned regeneration of the riverside. The area is very familiar to me as I was born and grew up within the boundary walk of the Readhead’s “knocker-up”, the first sounds to vibrate my infant eardrums would have been the the distinctive clatter of the hammering of rivets, or the slow dragging of chains as ships were slowly released from their slipways as they were launched into the River Tyne.

South Shields has changed a little over the years, the heavy industries have all but gone, to be replaced with light engineering, and service industries. Yet the ward which has perhaps seen the most physical change over the past 40 years is Rekendyke, an area once tightly packed with terraced housing covering the expanse of land from Tyne Dock to the Market Place and from the riverside to Chichester roundabout. It was serviced by trolley buses from the depot in Dean Road, South Shields, bringing people to the vibrant and lively shopping centre that was Frederick Street and Laygate, an area that would rival King Street for footfall and profitability on any day of the week. However the sixties and seventies were decades of change and this area was to suffer a massive decline in it’s fortunes, which to this day it has never recovered.

The standard of housing was poor and much of it was to be demolished to make way for improvement a new road and factories. In one fell swoop thousands of people were relocated to other areas of the town and from Tyne Dock to Laygate, from Commercial Road to Marshall Wallis Road was virtually denuded of properties and their inhabitants. The area became a breeding ground for light engineering works, electrical factories, one man garages and the like, who’s fortunes or otherwise seemed to change like the weather. Further towards the town centre streets like Bowman Street, Adelaide Street, Campbell Street, Green Street all were demolished too, (and Green Street was another handy place to shop). Even churches such as St. Mary in Eldon Street, St. Francis in Garwood Street, and Holy Trinity, and St. Mark’s in Laygate made way for the new developments. It seemed that when we demolished ten houses we managed to replace only three! Yet all the while the few properties that existed along the riverside, adjacent to Commercial Road remained.

I have argued this point before, that the reason why the community along the riverside became so disconsolate, so impoverished, so lost for hope, was because as a town we destroyed it. We removed it’s people and their houses, thus condemning the shopping centres to years of decline and decay, we condemned their churches by removing the congregations thus hastening the moral decline. We replaced lots with little.

Now we are to try and regenerate this once busy and proud area of South Shields, but unfortunately the lands affected will not include great parts of the aforementioned areas of decline. We will be looking at the Riverside (I imagine) from around the ferry landing to roughly where Aker McNulty Marine now is (Readhead’s). We can probably look forward to a mixed range of developments perhaps including housing, hotels, cafes and bars, and a little more office space. The Council is holding a public consultation exercise briefing in the Customs House to tell us how they aim to achieve their goals. The meeting/exhibition is on Saturday 10th. February between 11.00 a.m. and 3.00 p.m. and they are even laying on buses!

If you are at all interested in how this historically important area of South Shields is to be redevolped, (and over the coming years £500m. could be spent there) then can I urge you to drop in to the Customs House for this event.