Different tactics used in battle to revive northern high streets
The future for our town centres? A giant Tesco will dominate plans to redevelop Gateshead.
A year doesn't go by without some damning report about the state of our high streets.
But people who live and shop in many of them probably don't need telling that they have been in decline for many years.
Some are scarred by empty shops, others have become characterless clones dominated by chain stores.
So what's the solution?
A trip to two towns in Tyneside and you'll see two different approaches.
Gateshead's shopping centre has been in a seemingly relentless decline for years now, squeezed between Newcastle and the Metro Centre.
But at last something is happening.
The dilapidated developments of the '60s and '70s - including the infamous car park from the film Get Carter - have been demolished.
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The idea is to inject life back into the town centre. The new shop units will attract people during the day, while it's hoped the students will generate life after dark.
But it's all built around a giant Tesco.
That may well draw shoppers in, but some feel the development is a mistake.
advise councils and the government on design.
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They say they look monolithic, bulky and badly-designed.
And moreover they believe they're more geared towards benefiting Tesco than the wider town centre.
Down the line they fear the development could create the same problems as the '60s shops - a load of concrete but not a lot of life.
The demolition of the Get Carter car park in Gateshead - a legacy of an earlier redevelopment of the shopping centre.
Gateshead Council disagrees though. .
But across the Tyne there is evidence of another approach.
Whitley Bay town centre has had its share of problems over the last decade too.
But it appears to be undergoing a revival.
North Tyneside Council has hired in a retail consultant, given grants to businesses and even dressed up empty shops in fancy fake fronts to make the area look better.
Their real secret weapon though is the townspeople themselves.
Many of the shops are now let to local independent traders rather than national chain stores.
That's created a distinctive feel, and led to a rise in trade. Empty shop units have been cut by a third in 12 months.
Whitley Bay town centre is thriving thanks to small local independent traders.
The town centre manager John Fleet believes local traders offer customers a better experience, but also avoid the town depending on firms with no stake in the community.
He says local traders are more likely to stick with Whitley Bay and guarantee a long term future for the high street.
North Tyneside believes it's a model other smaller towns can follow.
So two different towns, two different councils, two different approaches.
But of course it won't be the local authorities who decide the fate of these attempts to revive our high streets, but shoppers voting with their feet and wallets.
There'll be more about this on the Politics Show at 12pm on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳1 this Sunday.
I'm Richard Moss, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s Political Editor for the North East and Cumbria. Welcome to my irreverent - but hopefully insightful - northern take on reporting politics for Look North and the Politics Show.
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