Seeking zero on the streets

Image: Urban homelessness Newcastle City by Sam Leighton (CC BY-NC 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/qVVCp2 

Street Zero is a Newcastle partnership involving charities, businesses, the city council and Northumbria Police.  Street Zero’s vision is to end rough sleeping by 2022 in Newcastle. The aim is treat all people with dignity and make sure everyone can be provided with a long-term safe place to live.

“Once on the streets, the impact on your health and wellbeing can be devastating, you feel vulnerable and alone and too often this can result in deteriorating physical and mental health. The average life expectancy is only 47 years of age for someone sleeping on the streets.” Street Zero

Street Zero estimate there are up to 20 rough sleepers in Newcastle on any given one night. The figures are low compared with many cities and the official statistics are not thought to be particularly robust. The January 2019 data release suggest the number of rough sleepers in Newcastle double between 2016 and 2017 and doubled again between 2017 and 2018.  However the statistics are 2016 – 5, 2017 – 10 and 2018 – 15.  These are all within Street Zero’s estimate of variability and it would be misleading to talk of any doubling between years.

When the charity Shelter was founded in 1966 it hoped to eradicate homelessness within a few years.  Since then Shelter has helped millions of people with advice, support and legal services. But they are still having to campaign.

Historian Prof Nicholas Crowson of the University of Birmingham researches histories of homelessness.  Writing in BBC History Magazine in September 2018 he points out that any reactive response to a current crisis isn’t actually tackling underlying issues with welfare provision and access to social housing.   A new historical exhibition Missing Pieces aims to show us the lives and experiences of those who lived on the streets in Newcastle and mend the gap between past and present by adding homelessness stories. But need homeless people continue to be part of our social history?

Every morning people found sleeping rough are approached by Newcastle council’s Street Outreach team, offered breakfast, showers and laundry facilities. We should be grateful they do.  There are over 700 funded beds available in Newcastle.  It might be possible to get those people sleeping rough under a roof for the night. That would be a great achievement but not a successful solution.  The visible problem might disappear from view but the real housing issues which affect far more people deserve to be taken more seriously.

What to do if you see someone sleeping rough in Newcastle: https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/housing/housing-advice-and-homelessness/what-to-do-if-you-see-a-rough-sleeper

• Rough sleeping and overcrowding figures The Guardian 31st Jan 2019
• Rough sleeping in England: autumn 2018 official figures https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rough-sleeping-in-england-autumn-2018
• How Greater Manchester is taking on rough sleeping (pilot scheme) The Guardian 31st Jan 2019 – Manchester pilot
• Street Zero launched Dec 2018 https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/news/street-zero-launches-newcastle
• How new initiative aims to end the problem of rough sleeping on our streets Chronicle news story 2nd Feb 2019  
• Desperate measures in Newcastle Chronicle news story 7th Feb 2019
• Crisis on what homelessness is https://ww w.crisis.org.uk/ending-homelessness/about-homelessness/
• Shelter – history of the charity https://england.shelter.org.uk/what_we_do/history
• Government rough sleepers strategy – England (Aug 2018) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45162892

“The Missing Pieces exhibition is a culmination of a year of research conducted by the Homeless History of Newcastle project team, thanks to funding by the Heritage Lottery Fund.  By researching the history of homelessness in Newcastle, Missing Pieces explores the issues around, attitudes to and experiences of homelessness in our city today. Taking place at Newcastle City Library, Discovery Museum, Laing Art Gallery, Bessie Surtees House and St Nicholas Cathedral.”  https://discoverymuseum.org.uk/whats-on/missing-pieces

Follow @HomelessHistNCL on twitter for details and latest events.

Sutton’s dwellings

Sutton’s Dwellings, Adelaide Terrace, Benwell (unknown date, public domain, https://flic.kr/p/7dXs1r)

When millionaire London businessman William R Sutton died childless in 1900, to the surprise of his extended family, his last will and testament directed a trust be established to provide dwellings for the poor.  Early philanthropic housing schemes were developed in London, but in the 1920s and 30s, the housing trust extended its model dwellings to other major cities including Newcastle upon Tyne.

Patricia Garside’s work shows there were177 flats built in Newcastle between 1900-19 and a further 276 between 1920-39.  They ranged in size from one to four rooms. The 1930s Sutton estate pictured above was sited on the former gardens of High Cross House  between Adelaide Terrace and Armstrong Road in Benwell, close to the factories along the River Tyne.  These flats were replaced by sheltered housing and low-rise housing in the late 1990s. The Sutton flats built in Barrack Road, were developed prior to 1920 (pictured below).  Garside’s detailed work on the tenancies demonstrates Sutton’s trust made a ‘substantial’ contribution to housing the poor ‘in separate self-contained dwellings’ prior to World War II.

Sutton’s Dwellings, Barrack Road, Fenham (unknown 1977, public domain) https://flic.kr/p/7dDx4E

Nationally there has been a trend to sell off social housing of this sort for redevelopment and gentrification.  There is currently a campaign to save one of the estates built by Sutton’s trust in the heart of Chelsea in London.

“…in Kensington and Chelsea housing associations made £5.3m from auctions in 2013 alone. Between 2013 and 2018, Brent sold £20.9m, and Hammersmith and Fulham £13.7m.” The Guardian June 13 2018

• Save the Sutton Estate: http://www.savethesuttonestate.co.uk
• Sutton Housing Trust archives:  http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/0034f909-fe8f-4486-972a-1fa58fcf79ed
• Benwell through the years in maps and pictures (pdf booklet, 2015) by St James’ Heritage & Environment Group and West Newcastle Picture History Collection https://co-curate.ncl.ac.uk/resources/view/68500/
• Academic article by Patricia Garside (2000) ‘The impact of philanthropy: housing provision and the Sutton Model Dwellings Trust, 1900‐1939’, Economic History Review Vol 53 (4) (pages 742–766). DOI:10.1111/1468-0289.00176 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2598602
• Benwell photos: http://www.timarchive2.freeuk.com/html/benwell.htm
• Sutton dwellings Barrack Road Newcastle (image): https://flic.kr/p/56KFu5

Postscript November 28th 2021

Many fans of the Geordie band Lindisfarne may have seen a BBC FOUR programme broadcast on Friday 26th November 2021: Lindisfarne’s Geordie Genius – The Alan Hull Story.  Presented by Geordie lad Sam Fender, among other things, it revealed the late Alan Hull had been brought up in Benwell at Sutton’s Dwellings.

• Sam Fender presents new BBC documentary on Lindisfarne’s Alan Hull: https://www.culturednortheast.co.uk/2021/11/01/sam-fender-presents-bbc-show-on-lindisfarne-frontman/

• ‘Leftie is now a slur in working-class towns’ Guardian Interview with Sam Fender by Ben Beaumont-Thomas: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/25/sam-fender-interview-leftie-slur-working-class-towns

Posted Dec 18th 2018; PS added 28th Nov 2021

Universal Credit and homelessness

Journalists writing in The Observer claim universal credit is ‘fuelling Britain’s homelessness crisis’ [The Observer October 28th 2018].  The front page news report describes a rise in demand for help by those experiencing homelessness following the introduction of the new benefit.  The Observer investigation interviewed various homeless charities in England and described the situation as ‘a crisis’.  In a feature-length article inside, it was stated ‘the growing homelessness crisis is the legacy of austerity’ [Why are so many people sleeping rough? The Observer October 28th 2018].

The impact of the introduction of the new Universal Credit benefit suggests national government thinking is not as joined up as might be hoped (despite the promise of a shift in attitude, see: 2017 Homelessness Reduction Act).  In August 2018 the government published a £100m Rough Sleeping Strategy to tackle rough sleeping in England, and Housing Secretary James Brokenshire said the government would make homelessness “a thing of the past” and eliminate rough sleeping by 2027.  But Brokenshire was later forced to admit there was no new money – the £100 million was made of money already allocated to homelessness or “reprioritised” from existing budgets [BBC News August 13 2018].

The Department for Work and Pensions designed Universal Credit to replace six means-tested benefits for working-age households (Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support, Housing Benefit, Employment and Support Allowance, Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit). The new combined benefit is administered by central government Job Centres and was trialled early in some areas including Newcastle.

The pattern of increased rent arrears following the introduction of Universal Credit was confirmed in a Department for Work and Pensions report (see graph below) Rolling out Universal Credit (June 15th 2018).  Being in rent arrears debt means tenants are likely to be served eviction notices and have to find somewhere else to live.

Before and after impact of Universal Credit on rent arrears, DW&P report 2018 (Figure-15-Rolling-out-Universal-Credit)

The signs were evident in Newcastle in summer 2017.  In evidence to a parliamentary Commons Work and Pensions Committee at Westminster in September 2017 Donna Gallagher of Your Homes Newcastle, the council’s provider of local authority housing, highlighted the difficulties the implementation of Universal Credit benefit had brought about.  New benefit claimants were forced to wait for payments and delays meant those tenants didn’t have money to pay the rent and were forced to turn to food banks.

“In terms of rent arrears, we’ve got over £1.1m additional rent arrears as a result of the cohort, which is just shy of 3,000 that we know about, that is claiming Universal Credit full service. …From a customer’s point of view it can be quite challenging and it is putting pressure on the landlord.  We are having to invest in time to put more resources in to try and support our customers, to prevent more homelessness.” Donna Gallagher of Your Homes Newcastle [Newcastle Chronicle, Sep 14th 2017]

Nevertheless, managers at Your Homes Newcastle, with council support, have sought to continue to help struggling claimants to try to prevent them becoming homeless.  According to Newcastle city council leader Nick Forbes Universal Credit is ‘a disaster’:

“…we’ve found that the vast majority of people on Universal Credit in Newcastle are in rent arrears.  And if they are in rent arrears in the social rented sector then we can deal with that, because we can work with them and provide them with support.  But if they are in rent arrears of sometimes 16 to 18 weeks in the private rented sector, that is causing havoc with homelessness and making sure that people feel secure in their own homes.” Nick Forbes, Newcastle council leader [Newcastle Chronicle Sep 26th 2017]

During the year 2017-18 4,876 cases of potential homelessness were prevented according to the city council’s refreshed Housing Statement (July 2018).  Newcastle and Gateshead councils working together have also secured up to £1.54m outcomes funding for a social impact bond to work with entrenched rough sleepers; the service started working with clients in January 2018.

Published October 28th 2018

Where does rent hit hardest?

Record numbers of people in the UK are renting space to live in as buying homes increasingly is put out of reach.  Recent research by the BBC shows that the North East of England remains relatively affordable with the average rent for one-bedroom  accommodation costing close to 25% of a 22-29 year-old’s income – the lowest for any region of the UK.  In the West Midlands it is 30% and in London over 50%.

“Analysis by the BBC’s data team shows that a gross annual income of £24,800 would be needed for the average one-bedroom rental flat in England to become affordable under the 30% measure. In Scotland £20,700 is needed and in Wales £17,600.  Many people can pay more than 30% of income on rent, but housing organisations say this puts considerable strain on the rest of their finances.” BBC News 3rd Oct 2018

But, the average figure hides a wider range of rents within each geographical area used: the average rent for a one-bed home in Scotland is £501, but it is £790 in central Edinburgh; the average for one-bed homes in the North East of England is £395, but in central Newcastle it is £657.  The table below shows that Newcastle postcodes all have average rents above those for North East of England as a whole.

Average rents for Newcastle upon Tyne postcodes

Average rents for Newcastle postcodes 2018 Source: BBC News Oct 3rd 2018

Postcode map for Newcastle upon Tyne (source CC-A-AS-3.0)

Newcastle upon Tyne inset map of Royal Mail postcode districts of the NE postcode area derived from Ordnance Survey OS Open Data. File licensed Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NE_postcode_area_inset_map.svg

 

 

 

A deck across the Tyne

Sometimes planners ideas never really get off the paper but they still can fire the imagination.  As part of the current Great Exhibition of the North, BALTIC is staging an exhibition featuring Tyne deck.

A BALTIC Bites YouTube video explores the unrealised modernist master plan Tyne Deck  (1969) which has been recreated as an architect’s model for exhibition at the gallery.

https://getnorth2018.com/

BALTIC: https://getnorth2018.com/venues/the-baltic-centre-for-contemporary-art/

How much do houses cost?

The UK House Price Index (HPI) uses house sales data from official Government property registers and is calculated by the Office of National Statistics.  It is more reliable than figures produced by mortgage lenders because not everyone buying a house requires a mortgage loan and individual lenders look at their own lending.

As of November 2017 the average house price in the UK is £226,071, and the index stands at 118.57. Property prices have risen by 0.1% compared to the previous month, and risen by 5.1% compared to the previous year. ONS http://landregistry.data.gov.uk/app/ukhpi

The pattern for Newcastle is slightly less buoyant.  The average price in Newcastle upon Tyne local authority area was £156,594 (November 2017) and the index stood at 108.73.  Prices had fallen 1.51% compared with the previous October 2017 and 0.78% compared to the previous year (2016).

The graph below shows the average sales price by property type for the period Dec 2016 to Nov 2017. It shows detached houses hovering around £300,000, semi-detached close to £180,000, terraced houses around £150,000 and flats about £110,000 to £115,000.  The average price of new-build homes in this period is around £225,000 to £235,000 and new buyers paid on average £130,000 to £140,000 for their first home.

Land registry data for Newcastle Dec 2016 to November 2017

• Check UK property price trends: https://www.gov.uk/check-house-price-trends
• Search sold property prices: https://www.gov.uk/search-house-prices
• Land Registry data: http://landregistry.data.gov.uk/id/region/newcastle-upon-tyne

How much of your area is built on?

You could be forgiven for thinking the most of the UK, with the exception of peripheral upland areas like the Highlands, Yorkshire Moors or Wales, is built over.  However the Corine land cover survey shows that over half of the UK’s land is agriculture, and just over a third is natural or semi-natural.

• Check your local authority area from this BBC article to find out how much of your area is built on.

The European Union database has been compiled by the European Environment Agency; Corine means ‘coordination of information on the environment’.  Using local maps and detailed satellite images, Corine gives us land use information for the whole of the UK. The University of Leicester and the University of Sheffield have been involved in producing the Land Cover Atlas.  There is a map for each of the 391 Local Authority areas of the UK.  The maps were created using open data and open source software and you can download them.

Corine Land Cover Newcastle upon Tyne

Copyright rests with the European Commission; Acknowledgement: Produced by the University of Leicester, The Centre for Landscape and Climate Research and Specto Natura and supported by Defra and the European Environment Agency under Grant Agreement 3541/B2012/R0-GIO/EEA.55055 with funding by the European Union.

The most expensive Newcastle homes

Data from the Land Registry has revealed the most expensive individual houses sold in the North East of England during August 2017.  The highest price paid was for a rural property at Hepscott near Morpeth (£999,999).

Gosforth and Jesmond continue to be Newcastle’s hot spots.  A house in The Drive, Gosforth went for £965,000 and one in Mitchell Avenue, Jesmond, for £945,000. http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/property-news/most-expensive-houses-north-east-13796247

However, the pattern might actually be more mixed – see this updated post: https://newcastleareas.wordpress.com/2018/02/08/most-expensive-in-newcastle-2017/

 

Most expensive streets in Newcastle

The Grove, Gosforth, mostly dating from the interwar 1919-39 period (May 2014)

• Updated Feb 2018 https://newcastleareas.wordpress.com/2018/02/08/most-expensive-in-newcastle-2017/

Back in 2014 figures  based on Land Registry data, giving averages for each road based on the mean of all non-commercial sale prices in 2014, showed that Newcastle had six of the top ten most expensive streets in the North East of England.  All of these streets were in either Jesmond or Gosforth.  Osborne Villas, Jesmond, and Elmfield Road, Gosforth, came top in 2014 and both had averages over £990,000.

Are these still the most expensive?  With new housing and changing tastes are the traditionally popular areas still topping the list?

The Newcastle Chronicle has used Zoopla to try and find out [12 March 2017].  Incidentally Zoopla uses Land Registry data and adjusts this to give a current average property value based on their current estimates; it is reasonably accurate.  Houses in The Grove, Gosforth, (above) sold for an average of £590,375 in the last 12 months and Zoopla puts the current average value at £625,531 [Zoopla search 17 April 2017].

Five of the top ten are in Newcastle and all of these are in Gosforth.  Elmfield Park comes in at £1,088,576 with Graham Park Road just behind at £1,079,198 and Westfield Drive at £934,937.  North Avenue and Elmfield Road also make the top ten.  Surprisingly no other street in Newcastle made the list; there were none from Jesmond!

However, according to a Lloyd’s Bank report Jesmond continues to be popular with professionals with house buyers prepared to pay  £73,700 more than average to live there, compared to the surrounding areas, making it one of the hottest property spots in the country to live in.  Property in Jesmond costs on average £268,877 while for the city as a whole it is £195,177 – a 38% premium [Chronicle 17 April 2017].

Don’t be deceived by averages.  Although there are currently houses for sale above the million mark on Zoopla (17 April 2017) the highest prices being sought tend to be for properties in Ponteland and Woolsington just outside the city boundary.  Some detached houses in Fenham and Heaton are also being marketed at over £700,000, so the picture is perhaps more varied than the top ten suggests.

• The Chronicle’s news story covering Tyne and Wear, Northumberland, and County Durham, has a gallery of images of these streets and details of average sales values (12 March 2017): http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/property-news/top-ten-most-expensive-streets-12727804

Changing face of Newcastle

Real estate advisory business GVA has published a report on urban development in the Newcastle core-city region: The Changing Face of Newcastle  (March 2017).  The report identifies key locations where change has occurred over the last ten years, major developments in progress and regeneration opportunities:

• Trinity Gardens and East Quayside
• The Stephenson Quarter (commercial and offices next to Central Station)
• Central Station – featuring the pedestrianised portico
• Downing Plaza, which houses Newcastle University Business School
• Wellbar Central and Time Central  (office developments in Gallowgate)
• The Rise, Scotswood (1,800 homes and open space)
• Newgate Shopping Centre (575 student beds, a hotel, retail and leisure space)
• East Pilgrim Street (retail, leisure, commercial and residential)
• Science Central (24-acre site of former Newcastle Brown Ale brewery)

“One of Newcastle’s great strengths is its knowledge economy. Over 100,000 students live in the city and surrounding region and it has one of the highest graduation retention rates at 55%. There… remains significant demand to provide more student accommodation in and around the city centre and to provide further facilities for the universities.” [GVA 2017 report p9]  (NB: The student figure appears to be a regional one including Durham and beyond.)

The Newcastle Chronicle has a virtual tour of Science Central’s Urban Science Building on the former breweries site: From coal mining to science hub [5 Feb 2017]. This is due to open in summer 2017.

“Newcastle Science Central is being delivered through a private and public sector partnership, led by Newcastle City Council and Newcastle University. It is set to create over 4,000 jobs, 500,000 sq ft of office space, and 450 new homes.”

According to an article in the Newcastle Chronicle there are 43,000 full-time students in Newcastle city (including 10,000 international students).  Purpose-built schemes of student flats, the accommodation favoured by international students, have provided more than 2,000 students beds since 2015 and planned schemes, if fully realised, are likely to provide 6,000 more.  These privately-funded schemes typically provide single hotel-style rooms with en-suite facilities, shared kitchenettes, self-serve laundries and some communal spaces. They are built to different standards than residential blocks of flats for the general population.  Rents are around £140 a week (and rising faster than inflation). [Newcastle Chronicle 15 March 2017]

Newcastle is one of ten Core Cities who want “all our UK cities to be fully empowered to shape their own future” (i.e. seeking some devolution of decision-making powers).  You can read the letter they sent to Prime Minister Theresa May:  https://www.corecities.com/cities/agenda/blog/letter-rt-hon-theresa-may-mp-core-cities-uk-cabinet