Demolition of Gateshead’s Get Carter car park starts today

Graham Soult

Retail consultant, writer, blogger; helping retailers via CannyInsights.com and CannySites.com. Say hello on Twitter at @soult!

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9 Responses

  1. Michael Cann says:

    It’s interesting how peoples’ views change over time: I clearly recall the outcry when “The Angel of the North” was first proposed, with all the criticisms of Traffic Hazard on the A1 through to “ruining the view from nearby housing” being well aired. recently, however, it has been suggested that the Angel itself be removed and replaced, and these same people are now saying, “You can’t do that – it’s one of the great symbols of the northeast!” The old Trinity Square carpark would, in common with so many other sixties structures around the country, still be in current use had it not succumbed to it’s inherent structural problems. Indeed, had it not been for the fame of “Get Carter”, then no-one would have noticed it at all while it was standing, and missed it even less now it’s gone!

  2. John H says:

    I’m delighted that the hideous “Get Carter Car Park” has gone. I don’t know of one single long term resident who liked it, or thought it should be kept. All the people who said that were from Bath, Birmingham, Bristol…in short, far-off places whose residents didn’t have to live with the monstrosity and look at it almost every day. The replacement may not be the most distinguished architecture around but, in my view, it will be both functional and attractive – both characteristics sorely lacking in Owen Luder’s construction.

  3. James says:

    “the Tesco store is properly integrated, visually and physically, into a wider scheme that is bold and modern”

    What a pile of toss. For comments on ‘properly integrated, visually and physically’ see CABEs comments that discredited the integration and scale of the design.

    And as for ‘bold and modern’ – the car park was both of them. The 3dRied proposals are more like ‘underwhelming and mediocre urban sprawl’. There is nothing bold or modern about the proposals.

  4. Seamaster says:

    I’ll be sorry to see it gone. I have an apartment in Newcastle that faces south-east and it’s the highlight of my view. I know it’s a ghastly building that’s never been fit for purpose, but as a movie buff and a Geordie, I can’t help thinking that a unique element of our shared cultural and architectural heritage is being obliterated.

  1. July 26, 2010

    […] my blog post about Gateshead’s Get Carter car park this morning, I suggested that “…it seems hard to believe that the car park is finally going […]

  2. October 5, 2011

    […] too big – and too powerful – is widely held, not least here in the North East where it owns much of Gateshead town centre and holds the key to the centre’s long-awaited regeneration. There are clearly some shoppers […]

  3. October 19, 2011

    […] By filling in the missing link between the centres, the scheme will create a 1.5-mile-long retail and leisure thoroughfare stretching from Newcastle’s Northumberland Street to Gateshead High Street, and connecting the planned retail-led regeneration of Aldersgate’s East Pilgrim Street site in Newcastle with Spenhill’s Trinity Square redevelopment in Gateshead. […]

  4. December 20, 2011

    […] and its detractors. When I blogged about the scheme back in July last year, one reader, Seamaster, lamented the demolition of Owen Luder’s iconic car park, while James lambasted my assessment that “the Tesco store is properly integrated, visually […]

  5. June 11, 2012

    […] town’ that will ultimately succumb to the same fate, in thirty years’ time, as the car park and shopping centre that it’s replacing. From retail, design and Gateshead resident perspectives, I make no apology for falling much more […]

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