Shops and restaurants on Gateshead High Street are now pleading with council chiefs to give them more support to ensure they can survive the disruption, which they say has led people to avoid the area and only worsened an already difficult trading environment.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Struggling high street businesses hit by the closure of the doomed Gateshead flyover fear they could die out before the crisis is resolved.
00:07Nearby shops and restaurants on Gateshead High Street are now pleading with council chiefs to give them more support to ensure they can survive the disruption,
00:14which they say has led people to avoid the area and only worsened an already difficult trading environment.
00:19Gateshead Council has said that the work to tear down the flyover could take a year, though details about the demolition and its costs are yet to be confirmed.
00:27The government is also coming under pressure to help pay for a wider regeneration of the town centre once the bypass is gone,
00:33could at last usher in the arrival of new homes and jobs.
00:37But with uncertainty continuing to surround the highway situation, local independent businesses say they simply cannot wait for a long-term redevelopment that has been talked about since 2008.
00:47Martin Gannon, the council's Labour leader, added,
00:49We know it must be frustrating for town centre businesses to have uncertainty around road transport,
00:54but we can assure that departments across the council are working hard to bring plans forward rapidly.