Newcastle is Peru...

[Guest sittingontheball]

Interesting discussion going on here.  It correlates with the idea of a "40-30-30 society", where 40% have stable careers, 30% have unstable careers and have to do what they can, and the bottom 30% are on benefits or live by crime. That seems to be the direction in which we've been going since Thatcher.

 

Since they've been brought up, I think its great that the Baltic is back in use but that the chosen use, a modern art gallery, is elitist and means little to the average person.  I think the Sage is much better, but am aggreived that the company got the naming rights for less than 10% of the cost.  It was ordinary people's money that built it, not Sage's.

[ChezGiven]

So Tiburón, what would you do to solve the problems you go on about and how would you finance such projects?

 

I'll have to have a think about that one in all seriousness.

 

OK, bear with me this is flying off from the top of my head here.

 

Approach it an experiment or trial kind of way. Go to residents of a troubled area and tell them you want to create a super community, to get rid of all the problems, to make their lives better and their kids lives better. But make it a reward and incentive driven thing. Ask each resident to volunteer for this scheme, opt in but no opt out. Build a street in this troubled area and hand over the properties to those who volunteered for the scheme. They now own their properties. Lots of clauses though. If you don't work, you have to go into training or get a job. If you have kids they have to go to school. If you're a single parent, while the kids are at school, you have to get a part-time job or go into training. If your kid is only a baby, once the kid is old enough for nursery, you have to get a part-time job or go into training. Break this and you lose your property and have to move out. Fit CCTV at the top and bottom of the street. Give each resident a garden with swings, goals, to get kids playing in the garden. Put internet in every house. Build a community housing clinic at the end of the street. Residents will run this place and this place will deal with all community matters, from housing to reports of incidents (hopefully there won't be any). Every 3 months the whole street has to go on a street trip. When I was a kid our street organised it's own trips to Flamingo Land or the Coast. Not all residents went of course, but most did. Build a youth centre at the end of the street. Parents run it. Only open a few days a week, don't want kids couped up all the time. Build a play pen at the end of the street too. Put goals up, basketball, benches, climbing frames etc. Give it 12 months. See what happens. Get business to sponsor it/fund it. At the end get the BBC around to make a documentary about it to spread the word, to make other communities interested in the scheme. As a taxpayer, I will happily contribute to such a scheme. I wouldn't whinge because people are getting houses for nowt. I'm fortunate, I have a job and have enough about me to do something for myself in life. Not everyone is the same. Some people need help to help themselves. Some people need a leg up, a second chance. Appoint a housing, social and community person to this street, an independent person whose job it is to monitor things, to chip in with advice regarding jobs, schooling etc.

 

Why not. Where I live they are building a so-called super academy at a huge cost and moving kids from Westgate Community College (my old school), a school that good teachers wouldn't fix, so why not build a super community. It can be done and while it would cost good money, the future of our kids is priceless and a better society would be worth it. You would then be able to truly filter out the lost causes or those who don't want any help, or can't be helped. What you do with the, let them fest away somewhere. Shame we stopped sending people to Australia Seriously, even troubled people who may have a history of anti-social behaviour, crime, or whatever, can be decent people or want to be decent people. It's not easy though for these people. All they know is bother. The environment traps them and helps create them. I'm reading a good book at the moment, Charles Bronson, that poor bastard. A violent man yes, but a good man. He wouldn't have caused half the bother he did in Jail to himself, others and the jails themselves if he was penalised in a better environment. And before people say anything, I'm no do-gooder or liberal, but I do think there is some good in a lot of wrong uns and especially in the area I grew up in. Just takes someone with balls and someone to stand up and go for it. Sir Beecham in his 500K Gosforth House with his private school education and his cronies on excessive wages for doing fuck all are not those people and nor are their plans right for those people. Demolishing their communities, dispersing them and promising them affordable homes when big business had had their wicked way on my old stomping grounds. I'll post some photos tomorrow, yous will be shocked some of you at the state of the area and that people still live in these rund down death traps of broken streets. People need more than a new home, or a re-touched home.

 

Perhaps you'd have some better ideas if you'd lived outside the region and seen how other communities have engaged in regeneration projects and were able to draw upon wider experience.....

 

Sorry, the social problems of Newcastle are so special that only those who have lived there all their life and have never moved out or moved in are the only ones who can appreciate what needs to be done. Maybe if i read the Charles Bronson book, i can understand things just like you.

 

The financial naievty of what you propose shows this not to be the case. Once you've spent the health and social security benefit budgets on these grand schemes, who's going to pay for the food and the healthcare?

[NE5]

:sleepy1:

 

agreed.

 

Almost fell asleep

 

 

[Guest Knightrider]

Perhaps you'd have some better ideas if you'd lived outside the region and seen how other communities have engaged in regeneration projects and were able to draw upon wider experience.....

 

I don't live outside of the region but my work takes me all over the UK and Scotland dealing with housing so while I may not have a wider experience where national regeneration projects are concerned I'm well versed in this nation and Scotland's housing problems and how people feel about their areas and problems that effect them (at both ends of the spectrum).

 

Sorry, the social problems of Newcastle are so special that only those who have lived there all their life and have never moved out or moved in are the only ones who can appreciate what needs to be done. Maybe if i read the Charles Bronson book, i can understand things just like you.

 

Each individual is different, each community is different, each set of people are different. While there will be a version of Scotswood in Leeds for example, that doesn't mean what works there will work for Scotswood or vice versa. To truly understand and therefore be in the best position to decide what is needed and what isn't needed and how best to help and to sustain improvements you have to live in these areas and know these people from the inside. People are what makes communities, not new buildings or money spent. You may be able to appreciate things like education, welfare, employment, crime and other things but you can't apply a standardised way of thinking or a one shop fits all process to these issues. People have different needs, often unique, even if they come under the same banner or heading as "under educated", "under employed" etc.

 

Kevin Keegan knows Newcastle inside out and indeed football, but he couldn't run Newcastle United from London, could he? Same applies.

 

The people of Scotswood have time and time again said what is wrong, what needs done and every single time the outside powers that be have done the opposite or plainly ignored them because quite frankly, they don't appreciate the needs of these people as these people are a different race almost to those making the decisions. Don't pull down our communities, don't disperse us, don't take away our homes and our lives, they said. Well I ask you to look at this picture:

 

http://www.stephennelson.co.uk/r2.jpg

 

Is that what the people need? Is that what they want? No and no. I didn't want it. My mate who had his family home compulsory purchased, the home he grafted all his life to buy, didn't want it. Nor do business.

 

"We know best" is the prevailing response to these things from the powers that be. If so, how come every single attempt to rectify or help these communities has failed? They know fuck all.

 

I'll tell you why areas like Scotswood are being demolished and whole communities dispersed, because the powers that be haven't got a clue what to do, meanwhile in the background that land those houses stand on (well, once did, they are gone now most of them) keeps going up in value. Regeneration has fuck all to do with people or their problems but money. That's what it boils down to.

 

The financial naievty of what you propose shows this not to be the case. Once you've spent the health and social security benefit budgets on these grand schemes, who's going to pay for the food and the healthcare?

 

Ha 

 

The money this country wastes would foot the bill for such schemes 10 times over man. Society loses more down the backs of their settees.

 

But lets spend £33m or whatever it was of public money on the Sage or Baltic for the minority of people who use it because it looks great on postcards and gets good write ups in the Guardian.

 

Btw, everything in life has a habit of evening itself out. If people don't have to pay rent because the council has gave them their property for example as proposed in my idea above, that rent money still goes back into the into the economy all the same. And I thought you understood economics

 

Anyway I know my off the top of my head idea is daft and laughable but the thinking behind my idea (principles) is about the long-term and not the short-term.

 

Unlike so-called regeneration which is once again all about the £££££££!

 

You go and play the social worker though if it makes you feel any better. 

[Guest Knightrider]

The thing is you can't make people behave how you want them too, it simply doesn't work, well not without some seriously draconian measures being put in place and they'd probably be unworkable in practice. You need them to want to do it. All a council or government can do is try and provide an environment that encourages them to do so, or at least doesn't dissuade them from doing so.

 

The big problem is that a lot of people have no hope, they can't see beyond a pretty miserable future for them and their family. Yet they're continually bombarded by the equivalent of the speedboat at the end of Bullseye, "Here's what you could have won!!". They see conspicuous consumption going on seemingly all around them, they see footballers, for example, driving Bentleys and having huge houses and all the rest of it and then they look at the people around them and they see that they don't have any of those things. Well, actually, there are some people around them who have those things; the criminals have those type of things, don't they. It's hardly surprising that so many young kids living in deprived areas choose an "anti-social" lifestyle, when they see that as the only way they can get the things they're being told they want. The problem is that people's expectations of what they can get, in fact, what they need from life has grown to unrealistic levels, yet their ability to get those things whilst living within the realms of society has decreased.

 

The reason people think it was better in the past is because in the past people had "realistic" or rather, limited expectations about what they could get from life. They tended to work in a similar job to what their father had done and he'd done the same, the rich people were from families that had been rich for a long time and the poor were from families that had been poor for even longer. There was no such thing as social mobility.

 

What there was, was lots of low paid manual-labour type jobs, mining, shipbuilding, and so-on. These jobs didn't offer much, you weren't going to get rich, but you could fulfil your dreams. The fact that your dreams consisted of having your own place - maybe - marrying the girl next-door, having a couple of kids and going to the match every other week, didn't matter, those were your dreams and they were achievable within the confines of society.

 

Those type of jobs have gone from this country, at least for a generation or two, until the Chinese get too rich and see making DVD-players for a couple of quid a day as being beneath them. Unfortunately, those unrealistic expectations are here to stay it seems, as long as a handful of poor people can make it rich, seemingly without putting in any real work, ie being footballers, musicians, etc, then people are going to want the same stuff they see those people with. Put those two things together and you're going to be left with a load of people who either see the things they want from life as totally unachievable and think what's the point in conforming with society, or see the things they want from life as only achievable by not conforming with society, either way there's a whole load of people outside of "normal" society.

 

How the rest of us cope with this is beyond me and is also probably beyond our government too, but one thing that I think we could do with is a few "poor-boys done good", people who aren't geniuses, but worked hard at school and so-on and made it big. Some examples to give people a bit of hope that they can get the things they want within society, if they're prepared to work for them. Needless to say it needs to actually be possible for them to do this and that's the job of the councils and governments of this world. Regeneration is part of that, but it goes well beyond that.

 

Good read Indi, some excellent points which I totally agree with and good to see a view that looks at things from a human perspective rather than a housing or financial one, i.e. management.

[Guest Chris P]

In France it is known as le stott!

 

In Spain it's El stotto

[Guest Knightrider]

No place like home

 

Three miles from Newcastle's thriving city centre, the Cowgate estate is a world apart. It has no doctor, no pharmacy, and its failing primary school is threatened with closure. Gordon Brown has renewed his pledge to end child poverty, but can he and campaigning residents make this a better place to grow up? Larry Elliott reports

 

Knock it down. The message on the Post-it note could hardly be more pointed. Cowgate, a council estate in Newcastle, is due for a facelift and the consultants are in. Residents have been invited to post their comments on a map of the estate. Some want a clampdown on the teenagers roaming the estate at night. Some complain about the length of the grass and the cow shit. But one, simply, has given up on regeneration altogether. Knock it down.

 

It is three short miles from Cowgate to the wine bars and restaurants on the banks of the Tyne. Three miles and a whole world apart. Down on the river bank, the Baltic art gallery, the Millennium bridge and the Malmaison hotel are the visible signs that Tyneside is recovering from the industrial meltdown of the 1980s. Newcastle was once famous for its ship-building and heavy industry. Today, it is famous for its high culture and hen parties; the Budapest of the North-east, some call it.

 

Youth workers say that some of the children on Cowgate have never seen the Millennium bridge and rarely leave the estate, a small slab of Newcastle that is wedged between Ponteland Road and the Town Moor in the north-west of the city. Ali NiCharraighe, who works for Save the Children, says: "This estate is very insular. There are only two ways in and two ways out. The whole geography is inward-looking."

 

Certainly, it is not a place those from outside venture into. Ponteland Road is the main artery from the city centre to the footballers' wives enclave of Darras Hall, but for Newcastle's wealthy, Cowgate is simply a roundabout on the way home to their gated, hacienda-style villas. In Newcastle, as elsewhere in the country, there are two Britains. Well-off Britain worries about house prices. In Cowgate, they are worried about the handful of "smackheads" dealing drugs and making their lives a misery. In well-off Britain, parents worry about whether they can get their children into a good school. In Cowgate, parents keep their children off school because they do not have £2.40 for the bus fare. In well-off Britain, there are music lessons after school. In Cowgate, there is that traditional escape route from poverty - a boxing gym. Assistant coach Garry Embleton says the sport teaches the teenagers self- discipline. "It takes a lot of the aggression off them, coming here. If you have had a rough day at school you can come here and let off steam," he says. There is plenty of steam to let off.

 

Ten years ago, Tony Blair used his first speech as prime minister to say that there would be no "forgotten people" in the Britain he intended to build. He went to the giant Aylesbury estate in south London to make the point that the election of a Labour government marked a break with the past. "For 18 years, the poorest people in our country have been forgotten by government," he said then. "They have been left out of growing prosperity, told that they were not needed, ignored by the government except for the purpose of blaming them. I want that to change. There will be no forgotten people in the Britain I want to build."

 

Nobody could say Labour hasn't tried to repair the damage caused by the 1980s, when Britain went from having one of the lowest rates of child poverty in the developed world to one of the highest. As chancellor, Gordon Brown spent billions on tax credits to lift the incomes of the poor. There has been extra investment in education and the launch of Sure Start programmes - one of the first of them in Cowgate - to help children in the crucial years up to the age of three and their parents to develop learning and social skills. Two years after his Aylesbury estate visit, Blair upped the stakes, making the bold pledge that Labour would eradicate child poverty in a generation.

 

By the time Blair left office on Wednesday, however, it was clear that abolishing child poverty by 2020 was proving a tough nut to crack. Labour set itself intermediate targets - a quarter reduction by 2005, half by 2010 - en route to its 2020 child poverty goal. The first was missed narrowly; it will take substantial redistribution of resources from the haves to the have-nots to meet the second, and the 2020 target currently looks like a pipedream. The gap between rich and poor is wider than it was in 1997; a report out this week said that social mobility - the chances of a poor child moving up the ladder - has declined since the 1950s. Nevertheless, the cause appears to have a champion in Brown who in his leadership acceptance speech on Sunday committed himself to meeting the child poverty targets, while his first cabinet reshuffle includes a new department for children, schools and families.

 

Cowgate has had money spent on it, with a big regeneration project that was started under John Major's government, but it has no doctor, no pharmacy, not even a pub. There are few owner-occupiers, and all but two of the 700 homes are in the lowest band for council tax. Unlike most deprived areas, there is not a high ethnic-minority population: it has one street where asylum seekers have been housed, but the estate is 98% white. And poor. This is not a part of the world where people throw a wobbly if their efforts at selling bonds or shares fail to garner a £1m bonus; almost a third of the working-age population are on incapacity benefit and are hidden from the unemployment statistics. Locals point out the burned-out house where a young man was killed in an arson attack over a £40 debt and the place where a desperate young mother killed her baby, set fire to her home and then claimed that she had been the victim of two balaclava-clad attackers.

 

Lindsey Boyle, who lives on the estate, says, "As soon as you say where you are from, you can see the look on people's faces. I don't know if Cowgate will ever shake off the label."

 

And yet, despite everything, it is not without hope. For one thing, Cowgate is set on the north-western edge of Newcastle's Town Moor. Some of the houses look out across the fields where the Highland cattle graze. If you shut your eyes to the boarded-up homes, the estate looks attractive; the homes - built 70 years ago - are a good size and have decent-sized plots. When the sun shines, the locals come out into their well-tended gardens and enjoy the view. Further round the moor, in Gosforth, where Newcastle's professionals live, that view can easily cost you £1m or more.

 

Another reason for optimism is that Cowgate is still a community in a way that Darras Hall - with its pastiche architecture, security cameras and tang of moneyed paranoia - is not. Cowgate's local councillor, Ged Bell, says it is an estate suffering from "third-generation benefits dependency and all the problems that brings, but even with all the issues it faces, community spirit is second to none. It's a very, very tight community. I have got to praise them for it. There is a very strong community spirit. It is very tightly bonded."

 

Filling in her questionnaire for the consultation, local resident Louise Riley says: "Sometimes I look around and think it's a real shithole and that my son deserves better than this. But it's my home."

 

Other locals agree. Viv Todd says she has moved away from Cowgate twice, only to return. "Cowgate's problems are more publicised than those anywhere else," she says. "It's all about fires and murder, never about the three people who are buying a house."

 

That is certainly true. When the United Nations reported that children in the UK were the most disadvantaged in the developed world, the local paper sent a reporter to Cowgate. The opening paragraph in an other- wise sympathetic piece said: "For many it is a byword for lawless streets controlled by a lost generation of feral teens." Yet the message, not just from local residents but from the police, the housing authorities and youth workers, is that the vast bulk of people are decent, law-abiding citizens whose lives are ruined by a minority. Linda Carruthers, who brings up her three children on £172 a week, says: "I was born here. I have lived here all my life. I like the estate and the people on it. Well, at least 90% of them."

 

A third reason for optimism is that things do seem to be getting better, albeit slowly. Save the Children works on keeping young people off the street and encouraging them to take control over their own lives. Daniel Walsh, 15, sits on a Newcastle-wide panel that decides which projects should be funded. "The good thing," he says, "is when you go to an event and see what they are doing with the money. You feel like you are responsible for something." Daniel wants to stay on at school and go to university.

 

Crime is down, helped by the employment of council street wardens and a more visible police presence. Inspector Graham Ward says: "We still do the 24/7 cops in pandas covering 999 calls, but we work together with the neighbourhood."

 

Walking round the estate, the police identify boarded-up properties belonging to private landlords and housing associations. What was once a well-tended 100ft back garden with mature fruit trees is now waist deep in stinging nettles and littered with rusting washing machines and sodden mattresses. Criminals use it as a rat run to escape from the law.

 

"There are little oases of well-tended and well-looked-after properties," says Ward. "Our job, with other agencies, is to build more of them and join them up. Neighbourhood policing is working. There has been a considerable reduction in the past six months in terms of burglary, crimes of violence and damage."

 

Cowgate is one of 20 problem estates that have been studied by researchers at five-yearly intervals since 1980. The latest findings from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said: "In 1995, it appeared that the 20 estates were 'swimming against the tide', with improvements potentially threatened by increased social polarisation. Overall, by 2005, the findings for the estates appeared very positive, suggesting additional progress over the past 10 years. There are also signs of significant and sustainable improvements suggesting the estates may be 'turning the tide'."

 

On the other hand, closing the gap with the rest of the country would take money - lots of it - and plenty of tender loving care. Even then, it could take up to 20 years to end "significant disadvantage". As with many other poor estates, Cowgate has been hard hit by the hollowing-out of Britain's industrial regions. The UK's northern regions were always more reliant on manufacturing than the south, and the trends in the economy over the past decade have accentuated the divide.

 

The Cambridge economist Bob Rowthorn says people should not be fooled by the sprucing up of the centres in cities such as Newcastle. "Anyone who visits the old industrial towns and cities of the north cannot fail to be struck by their recent transformation," he says. "Their centres have been cleaned up and partially rebuilt, old industrial buildings have been converted into homes and leisure facilities, and restaurants, wine bars and clubs abound. This is frequently cited as evidence of a great northern revival. This claim should be treated with caution." Government employment, he added, accounted for two-thirds of net job creation in the north between 1997 and 2003. The financial and business services sector has expanded over the past three decades but 40% of the increase is due to call centres. On Cowgate, there is scant evidence of the government's much-vaunted "knowledge economy", touted as the replacement for the old manufacturing jobs. Literacy and numeracy levels are worryingly low and the estate's primary school - in special measures since 2005 - was last week put under threat of closure.

 

Save the Children released a report earlier this month showing that 1.3 million youngsters in Britain were living in severe poverty. The charity admits, however, that it is far easier to arouse public sympathy for the poor in Africa than it is for the poor at home. Partly that is a rational response, since no child is starving to death on Cowgate, with obesity a more pressing problem. Partly it is a feeling that people cannot be struggling if they smoke and have a satellite dish on the roof. But, according to Jason Strelitz, policy adviser for STC, it is the myth of meritocracy in Britain: the notion that anybody can make it provided they are smart enough and work hard enough. But the 1.3 million children in severe poverty are in households trying to survive on £19 a day. "It's just not possible to meet the basic necessities of living in Britain today on that kind of income," he says.

 

NiCharraighe says that some children on the estate have the same comforts as children in better-off parts of the city. "There are children with computers, PlayStations and TVs in their rooms, but a lot of parents are up to their eyes in debt to pay for it."

 

Norma Mann is a volunteer for the estate's credit union. It has around 30 members who can apply for loans but are encouraged to save at the same time. Members pay interest at 2% a month - far higher rates than the well-off pay when they borrow against the rising value of their homes - but much lower than the 177% APR charged by the Provident Financial, Britain's leading supplier of home credit. "The toughest decision is when I have to turn people down for a loan," Mann says. "If I had the money I would give it to them. It's very hard to say no when people say they need it for their children."

 

The lure of debt - even at a penal rate of interest - can be strong. Linda Carruthers says the financial salesmen "prey on this estate", offering credit in the form of vouchers for the supermarket chain Iceland. "Obviously you are going to take them because you are going to feed your kids." Asked whether she is envious when she hears stories about Britain's super-rich, she replies: "That's the way we live. I would like nothing better than to win the lottery and have plenty of money. Like everybody else, I would like the best schools and houses. Everybody wants the same. But that's life."

 

That, indeed, is life on Cowgate. It is where 15-year-old Natalie Johnson wants to know how to become a midwife, while girls as young as 12 say their only ambition is to have a baby by the time they are 19. It is where one group of boys makes their own set of rickety goalposts while another strips the copper piping out of derelict homes.

 

Joy Mitchison, community housing manager, smiles when she hears about this attempt to take advantage of spiralling global commodity prices. "I didn't know they read the FT on Cowgate," she says. The estate, she adds, has improved vastly over the past 15 years. "It is blighted by a few pockets which have been neglected by irresponsible landlords. We feel very passionate about Cowgate."

 

Mitchison, like most of those living on the estate, gives short shrift to the idea that Cowgate should be razed to the ground. The solution, she says, is not to knock it down but to build it up.

 

Regarding the Cowgate school, the impending closure of that just typifies the response to problem areas and regeneration ideas. They are closing it because it failed an Ofsted inspection in 2005. Sack the fucking teachers then, people employed to teach kids, and bring in better ones. Nah, nah, close it, knock it down. Move them on. Kids don't need a new school, or a different one.

 

They are closing Westgate, my old school, building a super academy in Scotswood. Despite spending millions doing up Westgate. Is that the kind of financial naivety you mean Chez? Or is that good clean regeneration? Honestly, I like reading your posts and you do make a lot of sense, even in this thread, but there is fuck all you can teach me or tell me about my area and it's problems, much less try and mock my views on these issues. 

 

Oh and those wardens who have helped reduce crime, their numbers are being cut.

 

"We know best"

 

[Guest Knightrider]

Linda Carruthers, who brings up her three children on £172 a week, says:

 

Jesus wept.

[Guest Chris P]

This site's for people who like typing. Which proves that Newcastle is not completly full of Numpty's.

[ChezGiven]

 

Each individual is different, each community is different, each set of people are different. While there will be a version of Scotswood in Leeds for example, that doesn't mean what works there will work for Scotswood or vice versa. To truly understand and therefore be in the best position to decide what is needed and what isn't needed and how best to help and to sustain improvements you have to live in these areas and know these people from the inside. People are what makes communities, not new buildings or money spent. You may be able to appreciate things like education, welfare, employment, crime and other things but you can't apply a standardised way of thinking or a one shop fits all process to these issues. People have different needs, often unique, even if they come under the same banner or heading as "under educated", "under employed" etc.

 

 

Absolute horse jism.

 

The same principles underpin all forms of economic growth and social regeneration. Are you proposing that sociologists, economists and psychologists all deploy different thinking every time they look at any community? As those differences you allude to exist everywhere, every community has special circumstances.

 

Saying that you need to understand local issues to find local solutions isnt adding anything. Make me a list of these local problems and we'll see if we can find them existing elsewhere?

 

Its also a long way from saying that replacing the relatively small investment on local arts and culture with massive social investments is an equivalent and comparable activity or that local arts and culture doesnt have a pivotal role. Which is what you were originally bleating on about.

[ChezGiven]

 

The money this country wastes would foot the bill for such schemes 10 times over man. Society loses more down the backs of their settees.

 

 

Its boils down to this.

 

Unless you have some amazing news that will unlock all this money? Budgets are already spent before the year has begun, so you'll have to cut the social security money somewhere? Or generate more revenues by increasing tax revenues? Which would require what?

 

Unless you come up with an answer its basically what do you do with £50m quid?

 

To think that the city centre would have remained the same as it was 15 years ago at the expense of some fucking pikeys in cowgate getting a bit of extra dole and some cameras isnt that an attractive a thought tbh. Quite intrigued by your position that the city's improving reputation as a place of culture is something you are against.

[Guest Knightrider]

 

Each individual is different, each community is different, each set of people are different. While there will be a version of Scotswood in Leeds for example, that doesn't mean what works there will work for Scotswood or vice versa. To truly understand and therefore be in the best position to decide what is needed and what isn't needed and how best to help and to sustain improvements you have to live in these areas and know these people from the inside. People are what makes communities, not new buildings or money spent. You may be able to appreciate things like education, welfare, employment, crime and other things but you can't apply a standardised way of thinking or a one shop fits all process to these issues. People have different needs, often unique, even if they come under the same banner or heading as "under educated", "under employed" etc.

 

 

Saying that you need to understand local issues to find local solutions isnt adding anything. Make me a list of these local problems and we'll see if we can find them existing elsewhere?

 

This is where you have shown me that you have completely misread my points or are looking at what I'm saying from a different angle. You say issues, I say people. The issues may be the same, the people most certainly are not. That's my point.

 

You can come in with your understanding of education, social and economic regeneration, crime, employment, your money, your housing plans, but a fat lot of good it will do if you haven't the first clue about the people as history has shown, otherwise these people and these communities wouldn't need any help. Scotswood has had all of that which you speak of and so too have other areas, often many times over, yet still nothing has changed, indeed things have gotten worse. Why is that? Because the people who make the decisions don't have a clue about the people which can only come from being one of them, or if not, having experienced what they have experienced.

 

You can't do that from some research paper based on questionnaires like "would you like to see less crime in your area"

 

I've sat in on these "community clinics" and they are a joke. I've left many with the opinion that it doesn't really matter what we say or think, they will always think they know better and that's exactly what transpires otherwise the likes of Scotswood wouldn't represent a scene out of Band of Brothers less than a decade after outsiders brought in what you have so much faith in. Well sorry if I don't share your faith because I've had to watch my community crumble to wasteland, people I know forced from their homes and dispersed and the area I was born and raised in become complete and utter hell holes, all in the name of regeneration.

[ChezGiven]

 

Each individual is different, each community is different, each set of people are different. While there will be a version of Scotswood in Leeds for example, that doesn't mean what works there will work for Scotswood or vice versa. To truly understand and therefore be in the best position to decide what is needed and what isn't needed and how best to help and to sustain improvements you have to live in these areas and know these people from the inside. People are what makes communities, not new buildings or money spent. You may be able to appreciate things like education, welfare, employment, crime and other things but you can't apply a standardised way of thinking or a one shop fits all process to these issues. People have different needs, often unique, even if they come under the same banner or heading as "under educated", "under employed" etc.

 

 

Saying that you need to understand local issues to find local solutions isnt adding anything. Make me a list of these local problems and we'll see if we can find them existing elsewhere?

 

This is where you have shown me that you have completely misread my points or are looking at what I'm saying from a different angle. You say issues, I say people. The issues may be the same, the people most certainly are not. That's my point.

 

You can come in with your understanding of education, social and economic regeneration, crime, employment, your money, your housing plans, but a fat lot of good it will do if you haven't the first clue about the people as history has shown, otherwise these people and these communities wouldn't need any help. Scotswood has had all of that which you speak of and so too have other areas, often many times over, yet still nothing has changed, indeed things have gotten worse. Why is that? Because the people who make the decisions don't have a clue about the people which can only come from being one of them, or if not, having experienced what they have experienced.

 

You can't do that from some research paper based on questionnaires like "would you like to see less crime in your area"

 

I've sat in on these "community clinics" and they are a joke. I've left many with the opinion that it doesn't really matter what we say or think, they will always think they know better and that's exactly what transpires otherwise the likes of Scotswood wouldn't represent a scene out of Band of Brothers less than a decade after outsiders brought in what you have so much faith in. Well sorry if I don't share your faith because I've had to watch my community crumble to wasteland, people I know forced from their homes and dispersed and the area I was born and raised in become complete and utter hell holes, all in the name of regeneration.

 

But all the areas around the quayside which are now being regenerated were fucked to shit years ago and the city council quite rightly tried to regenerate the city first. Where have i missed the point? You said 'fuck the city centre', you said cultural investment in the city was worthless, you dont believe that some of it might help the whole place. Thats why you're going on about fucked up council estates as you were arguing money should be spent there and not on the Sage, the Baltic and presumably the Angel of the north and anything else Northern Arts has been doing.

 

I'm not arguing that 'community clinics' are helpful or are solving problems. If the person running them controls money and gets to know the people through them then that might solve half of your issue. I have to say thats got very little to do with your original point.

 

You also quote that one line yet dont propose any list of issues that cant be generalised either, just for the record.

[Guest Knightrider]

 

Each individual is different, each community is different, each set of people are different. While there will be a version of Scotswood in Leeds for example, that doesn't mean what works there will work for Scotswood or vice versa. To truly understand and therefore be in the best position to decide what is needed and what isn't needed and how best to help and to sustain improvements you have to live in these areas and know these people from the inside. People are what makes communities, not new buildings or money spent. You may be able to appreciate things like education, welfare, employment, crime and other things but you can't apply a standardised way of thinking or a one shop fits all process to these issues. People have different needs, often unique, even if they come under the same banner or heading as "under educated", "under employed" etc.

 

 

Saying that you need to understand local issues to find local solutions isnt adding anything. Make me a list of these local problems and we'll see if we can find them existing elsewhere?

 

This is where you have shown me that you have completely misread my points or are looking at what I'm saying from a different angle. You say issues, I say people. The issues may be the same, the people most certainly are not. That's my point.

 

You can come in with your understanding of education, social and economic regeneration, crime, employment, your money, your housing plans, but a fat lot of good it will do if you haven't the first clue about the people as history has shown, otherwise these people and these communities wouldn't need any help. Scotswood has had all of that which you speak of and so too have other areas, often many times over, yet still nothing has changed, indeed things have gotten worse. Why is that? Because the people who make the decisions don't have a clue about the people which can only come from being one of them, or if not, having experienced what they have experienced.

 

You can't do that from some research paper based on questionnaires like "would you like to see less crime in your area"

 

I've sat in on these "community clinics" and they are a joke. I've left many with the opinion that it doesn't really matter what we say or think, they will always think they know better and that's exactly what transpires otherwise the likes of Scotswood wouldn't represent a scene out of Band of Brothers less than a decade after outsiders brought in what you have so much faith in. Well sorry if I don't share your faith because I've had to watch my community crumble to wasteland, people I know forced from their homes and dispersed and the area I was born and raised in become complete and utter hell holes, all in the name of regeneration.

 

But all the areas around the quayside which are now being regenerated were fucked to shit years ago and the city council quite rightly tried to regenerate the city first. Where have i missed the point? You said 'fuck the city centre', you said cultural investment in the city was worthless, you dont believe that some of it might help the whole place. Thats why you're going on about fucked up council estates as you were arguing money should be spent there and not on the Sage, the Baltic and presumably the Angel of the north and anything else Northern Arts has been doing.

 

I'm not arguing that 'community clinics' are helpful or are solving problems. If the person running them controls money and gets to know the people through them then that might solve half of your issue. I have to say thats got very little to do with your original point.

 

You also quote that one line yet dont propose any list of issues that cant be generalised either, just for the record.

 

Eh, I'm taking about run down areas now which evolved from the original point and you're suddenly harping back on about that original point in response to issues that are no longer related to the OP or have moved on from that. Debate the points I've raised, or challenge them, instead of harping on about something different or already covered. Too wide for those games Chez man

 

Btw you too have cut off my of my views to respond to specific lines.

 

Anyway, just a reminder. The debate is now about regeneration in run down council estates and the effects it has on people from those areas and how best to "get around" these issues. You shouldn't need reminded though as only a few posts back you were knee high deep into that very debate, before swinging back to what was on my part, an initial rant.

[Guest Knightrider]

Quite intrigued by your position that the city's improving reputation as a place of culture is something you are against.

 

And where have I said I'm against it? You assume to much about something I haven't even discussed much outside of a mere rant which is what the OP was really, not a springboard for a whole debate (although I have enjoyed the debate, which you've played your part in with your own views  ). For what it's worth I'm all for improvements being made on many levels in and around Newcastle, I just wish it was more evenly spread out, more inclusive and where "culture" is concerned, more in line with the City's real heritage and culture. Many of the so-called culture regeneration projects reminds me of a Father Ted episode where every day rocks were being granted historical religious status.

 

And what does piss me off especially is the rewriting of history or the basic ignorance of our history as a City which before the Angel of the North, the Baltic, the Sage et al, was as rich in cultural history and heritage as it is now, more so even. Furthermore, where were the cultural champions with vested interests to protect and promote today, back in the days before the Baltic, Sage etc when the outside world were rubbishing our City as drab, grey and gloomy and our people as thick, uncultured, uneducated Geordies.

 

Yes I'm suspicious of these people and with good right. I don't trust them and I detest falseness whatever form it comes in.

 

Back to "the pikeys" you referred to early, I'd rather invest in people personally speaking over concepts, projects, bricks and other superficial things because people are real, everything else in comparison is just an illusion really. The Sage? One man's centre of culture, another man's white elephant.

 

Me? I can take it or leave it. It honestly means nowt to me, but then I place my sense of worth and sense of value in people whether it be a community or indeed my City in a nutshell which will always be great to me, cultural regeneration or no cultural regeneration, because of us lot the people who made the City and who it belongs to and wouldn't be bonny old Newcastle without.

[madras]

cowgate is a great example,the buildings themselves aren't so bad,on the edge of the moor,playing fields within walking distance,even a small sports centre. if those that lived there took care or an intrest in their environment we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

 

tiburon, i think it was you before saying the people in those places have little hope. if so that is something deeper than an environmental cause,primarily parental and educational. jobs are easier to come by now than probably any time in the last 30yrs for those with the basic skills.

[ChezGiven]

Forgive me for keeping my own debate with you alive, you've certainly said nothing in the ensuing time that has changed my view that your initial outburst was wrong and thats what prompted you to question my roots and my ability to understand the place where i grew up and spend a lot of time in. Not sure why your subsequent ramblings should preclude me from challenging you on those posts.

 

"Too wide for those games Chez man"

 

Not really as you then subsequently answer the question at hand. Which is what the OP was about and is at the heart of the whole debate. Not sure why you cant connect the dots (well i have an idea).

[Guest Knightrider]

cowgate is a great example,the buildings themselves aren't so bad,on the edge of the moor,playing fields within walking distance,even a small sports centre. if those that lived there took care or an intrest in their environment we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

 

tiburon, i think it was you before saying the people in those places have little hope. if so that is something deeper than an environmental cause,primarily parental and educational. jobs are easier to come by now than probably any time in the last 30yrs for those with the basic skills.

 

I said the environment can play a role, positive or negative. I do agree that essentially, it boils down to what you make of your lot. But I don't know, I think it's a two way thing regarding estates like that. I also agree it goes far deeper than that. The rot set in at some point and instead of being stabilised and reversed, it's spread and engulfed areas like that.

 

I wouldn't be fooled by the jobs market myself like. There may seem like there are millions of jobs available but it's not so easy as that. Anyone can get a job at Burger King for example. Not a job to be sniffed at if you have zero qualifications or anything about you. But I'll take you back to an old mentality in these areas: "you would better off on the dole"

 

I'm not saying that btw, that's how a lot of people would look at a job like Burger King, or stacking shelves, or whatever.

 

 

[madras]

cowgate is a great example,the buildings themselves aren't so bad,on the edge of the moor,playing fields within walking distance,even a small sports centre. if those that lived there took care or an intrest in their environment we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

 

tiburon, i think it was you before saying the people in those places have little hope. if so that is something deeper than an environmental cause,primarily parental and educational. jobs are easier to come by now than probably any time in the last 30yrs for those with the basic skills.

 

I said the environment can play a role, positive or negative. I do agree that essentially, it boils down to what you make of your lot. But I don't know, I think it's a two way thing regarding estates like that. I also agree it goes far deeper than that. The rot set in at some point and instead of being stabilised and reversed, it's spread and engulfed areas like that.

 

I wouldn't be fooled by the jobs market myself like. There may seem like there are millions of jobs available but it's not so easy as that. Anyone can get a job at Burger King for example. Not a job to be sniffed at if you have zero qualifications or anything about you. But I'll take you back to an old mentality in these areas: "you would better off on the dole"

 

I'm not saying that btw, that's how a lot of people would look at a job like Burger King, or stacking shelves, or whatever.

 

 

re jobs market...that gets to a catch 22 situation,how do you make it worthwhile ? give them more money that the job is worth which in turn pushes other wages up or cutting their dole money perpetuating the lack of hope bit ?

 

then again a lot of these kids seem to think a job like that is beneath them when quite often is it all a good few of them are capable of. (my best man is a small businessman,both in stature and company size and we read through the job applications,hilarious and frightening in turn)

[Guest Knightrider]

Forgive me for keeping my own debate with you alive, you've certainly said nothing in the ensuing time that has changed my view that your initial outburst was wrong and thats what prompted you to question my roots and my ability to understand the place where i grew up and spend a lot of time in. Not sure why your subsequent ramblings should preclude me from challenging you on those posts.

 

"Too wide for those games Chez man"

 

Not really as you then subsequently answer the question at hand. Which is what the OP was about and is at the heart of the whole debate. Not sure why you cant connect the dots (well i have an idea).

 

Re-read the posts man, you were perfectly happy challenging me on the whole run down communities and regeneration points which dominated our debate, until a post or two back where you decided to jump back to the OP for some reason. Of course regeneration as a whole covers city centre and run down estates (and a whole lot more that hasn't been discussed) but were we not talking about specific issues of one nature, and not the other or the whole? I was anyway, actually prompted by your responses to my comments.

 

Otherwise why the hell did you ask me to post some ideas as to how I would deal with run down areas and the issues that revolve around them?

 

Going through the thread you have ignored many of the points I've raised not just in general, but in direct response to your own, now you ask me to basically clarify things FOR YOU, or to justify my views, many views you assumed of me (i.e. assuming I'm against cultural regeneration). If I'm not connecting the dots, you're not returning the ball.

 

As far as I'm concerned, I have answered all your points, or debated all the issues, you have flip flopped on the otherhand and tried (in vain) to get back to a point - the cultural regeneration of the city centre - which you feel you have the upper hand in having lost out to my superior knowledge and experience of city slum regeneration. An imaginary upper hand I might add, given that in now way have I said that I am against city centre cultural regeneration or whatever it is you call it.

 

In short, you're debating against an imaginary foe my friend because as I have since posted, I am actually not against it.

 

Get back to me when you want to rejoin the evolved debate. Or if you insist on going all the way back to the OP then I think I've answered your points above to be honest if you check and therefore wish you a pleasant evening sir, your debate is now concluded.

 

Onto Madras...

 

 

[Guest Knightrider]

cowgate is a great example,the buildings themselves aren't so bad,on the edge of the moor,playing fields within walking distance,even a small sports centre. if those that lived there took care or an intrest in their environment we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

 

tiburon, i think it was you before saying the people in those places have little hope. if so that is something deeper than an environmental cause,primarily parental and educational. jobs are easier to come by now than probably any time in the last 30yrs for those with the basic skills.

 

I said the environment can play a role, positive or negative. I do agree that essentially, it boils down to what you make of your lot. But I don't know, I think it's a two way thing regarding estates like that. I also agree it goes far deeper than that. The rot set in at some point and instead of being stabilised and reversed, it's spread and engulfed areas like that.

 

I wouldn't be fooled by the jobs market myself like. There may seem like there are millions of jobs available but it's not so easy as that. Anyone can get a job at Burger King for example. Not a job to be sniffed at if you have zero qualifications or anything about you. But I'll take you back to an old mentality in these areas: "you would better off on the dole"

 

I'm not saying that btw, that's how a lot of people would look at a job like Burger King, or stacking shelves, or whatever.

 

 

re jobs market...that gets to a catch 22 situation,how do you make it worthwhile ? give them more money that the job is worth which in turn pushes other wages up or cutting their dole money perpetuating the lack of hope bit ?

 

then again a lot of these kids seem to think a job like that is beneath them when quite often is it all a good few of them are capable of. (my best man is a small businessman,both in stature and company size and we read through the job applications,hilarious and frightening in turn)

 

I'm of the opinion that a lot of people who can work and should be in work but aren't, are fucked one way or another. I base this on having a good mate who is on a low paid shitty job and is basically on the bones of his arse. He has two options, continue or go on the dole which will actually financially make him slightly better off. He could of course get himself a higher paying job but with zero qualifications, little get up and go in him and not being the sharpest tool in the box, he has little hope of finding such a job. My response to this person therefore (and people like him) would be to see where I could make his life easier, and I'd do that by looking at what I the state am taking from this clearly disadvantaged person. Starting with the 55 quid a week rent for the council home I'm renting him. I'd wave that which would basically make him 55 quid a week richer which if managed right could improve his life a whole lot more. On one condition though, you remain employed.

 

Could that work financially? I believe so with a little shifting of the goalposts. You see, economically, the economy as a whole will still get it's 55 quid every week, it just won't be going to the council. Which is maybe a good thing as the council is far too staff heavy and full of it's own importance anyway. I'd also waver none essential things like the BBC TV licence and make homes less dependent on expensive energy (in doing so helping the environment).

 

The cost of living is rising but the level of wages, in Newcastle anyway, is either falling or staying the same. Either way it's lower than the national average.

 

That's what I'd do anyway, for a start.

 

 

[Guest Knightrider]

PS I'm hoping such incentives above would encourage people to get a job and keep those in shitty jobs, in their shitty jobs. If you're going to work to effectively pay yourself to go to work, well, there's nowt worse. I've been there many a time earning as little as 20 quid a day, money that I'd use up on transport, tabs, dinner etc. during that day, leaving very little for anything else. It's impossible to live like that without topping things up via crime or fiddling the benefit system. Those are two other areas where such a system as outlined above could help in preventing and thus saving money.

 

 

[macphisto]

Not going to get too bogged down in the debate but could you explain how local people could solve local problems? Any one who had half a brain about them would not be living in these areas now and all that's left is the dross. If they can't look after themselves and their kids then how can they assume responsibility for their whole community? It shows many of these people up for what they are if they are so devastated about the loss of their community because any sane person wouldn't be able to wait to get out these places. Why are they not thinking "great, I'm out of here and can give my kids a better place to grow up in"? Also too easy to blame the council dispersal of communtities as these places have been a dump since at least the mid 1980's.

 

With regards to the woman living on £172 a week for three kids, well she shouldn't have had that many it's HER responsibility. Is it people like her who you think should be charged with managing their own community? Fair enough in some circumstances she may not be to blame but we all know that the vast majority of these mothers are having kids without a thought to the future!

 

 

[madras]

he has no get up and go,isn't the sharpest tool in the box...why ?

 

the waiveing of rent makes him £55 better off,but the council £55 worse off.no doubt you'll rattle off  a few things where money can be saved or is wasted then i'll come back with a few where money should be spent or is deesperatly needed  instead of giving your mate a free ride.

[Guest Knightrider]

he has no get up and go,isn't the sharpest tool in the box...why ?

 

the waiveing of rent makes him £55 better off,but the council £55 worse off.no doubt you'll rattle off  a few things where money can be saved or is wasted then i'll come back with a few where money should be spent or is deesperatly needed  instead of giving your mate a free ride.

 

What would you do with my mate then?