Metrocentre today announces the signing of a landmark agreement to deliver Metro Riverside, in partnership with Gateshead Council. A major new mixed-use development on the south bank of the River Tyne, it will create a carbon-neutral “city within a city” with Metrocentre at its heart.
Metro Riverside is a transformational urban regeneration project that will create 5,000 new jobs, and has the potential to accommodate thousands of residents, while doubling the site’s contribution to the regional economy to more than £2 billion per annum by 2045.
Located just three miles west of Newcastle-Gateshead city centre, Metro Riverside will transform under-utilised brownfield land surrounding Metrocentre into a thriving, sustainable and diverse new urban community. Designed as a 20-minute destination, it will offer compact, accessible and walkable neighbourhoods in a high-quality waterfront setting, supported by strong public transport connections.
Metro Riverside will be one of the largest and most ambitious urban regeneration projects undertaken in Britain outside the M25, signalling a major vote of confidence in the North East as a destination for long-term, large-scale investment, and marking the most significant evolution of the area since Metrocentre opened its doors 40 years ago.
Metro Riverside is also identified as a major housing scheme in NECA’s Local Growth Plan and in the Strategic Place Partnership created by NECA and Homes England, which seeks to unlock delivery of new homes.
Martin Healy, chairman of Metrocentre, comments: “Metro Riverside demonstrates the power of long-term public-private partnerships to unlock transformational change. Developments of this scale and ambition simply cannot be delivered in isolation.
“By working in partnership with Gateshead Council and others, we can bring together long term investment, local leadership and shared purpose to create a new dense, urban community that delivers homes, jobs and opportunities, while ensuring Metrocentre continues to evolve as a major economic engine for the region for decades to come.”
A cornerstone of the River Tyne Renaissance
The ambition is for Metro Riverside to play an important role in nature recovery and to deliver significant biodiversity net gain, including green corridors marked by woodland and connecting with the river to encourage pedestrian and cycle connections with the city centres and the River Tyne corridor. There is an opportunity to improve sustainable urban drainage across the whole area, improve flood defence and flood resilience.
At the heart of Metro Riverside will be a re-imagined Metrocentre, evolving from what is already a super-regional retail destination. Spanning retail, leisure, hospitality, workspace, health and wellbeing, education and renewable energy, the aim is for the centre to serve the everyday needs of new residents and workers, while continuing to attract visitors from across the North East and beyond.
Metro Riverside forms a central pillar of Gateshead Council’s Regeneration Plan, which aims to reconnect communities to the river and reverse decades of economic underperformance. It will have the capacity to generate substantial economic, social and environmental value for the wider region, supporting thousands of jobs, attracting new businesses and residents, and strengthening the North East’s role as a national growth engine.
