Earlier this year, Newcastle City Council updated its proposals for High West Jesmond as part of the overall Jesmond Streets for People plans. The council signalled that it was considering other options for how the budget might be used to improve walking and cycling. Read more [...] East Gosforth – Streets for People
3 Replies
Earlier this year, Newcastle City Council updated its proposals for High West Jesmond as part of the overall Jesmond Streets for People plans. The council signalled that it was considering other options for how the budget might be used to improve walking and cycling. Read more [...] 
This is the second of four SPACE for Gosforth blogs that together make up our response to the Council's Clean Air consultation.
Our first blog set out our review of the Council's proposed measures including a charging clean air zone and an alternative approach made up of a lower emission zone where non-compliant vehicles are banned and there are tolls on the city centre bridge.
In this blog we propose measures for the city as a whole and specifically for the City Centre Air Quality Management 
The Regent Centre is one of the main destinations in Gosforth along with Gosforth High Street. Built in the 1970s on the site of the former Coxlodge Colliery, Regent Centre was at one time one of the largest office complexes in Europe. Now it includes the Gosforth swimming pool, library and Civic Theatre, as well as being close to several schools and the Regent Centre Metro and bus interchange.
We have taken a look and have come up with a set of proposals to improve walking and cycling access 
On 20 May 2019, Killingworth Road re-opened to south-bound vehicle traffic. Following complaints from local residents on the SPACE for Gosforth Facebook group, we thought we would take a look. 
SPACE for Gosforth has produced some air pollution banners for local schools for Clean Air Day 2019. 
SPACE for Gosforth responded to the Council’s Air Quality consultation. This blog covers the part of the response in which we review the Council’s proposals. 
In our recent Your Street - Your Views survey of Gosforth residents, poor air quality, traffic noise and dangerous driving were the 2nd, 3rd and 4th greatest issues for Gosforth High Street. All three can be made better through a reduction in the speed limit, which the Council are now proposing. 
The Government has directed Newcastle City Council to meet air quality limits in the shortest possible timescales. To achieve that, the Council must use the most effective and fastest acting measures to reduce pollution in locations where legal limits are not being met.
Measures that take longer or are not as effective may also be included in the plan in addition, but not instead of, the most effective measures.
We thought we would take a look to see what the evidence says.
Broadly 
In 2015, at SPACE for Gosforth's launch event we asked local residents, what do they like about the High Street and what could be improved? The Your Streets - Your Views survey gave us an opportunity to revisit this to see whether, three years later, these concerns were widely shared.
Elections for Newcastle City Council are due to be held on 2 May 2019. As with last year we're keen to find out how the candidates propose to address transport-related issues in our community. To do that we've come up with five statements or pledges and we have asked each of the candidates whether they support these or if not what they plan to do instead.