The North Briton

A rare football-related post. There’s no easy way to say this, it’s “sportsdirect.com @ St. James’ Park Stadium”.

Clearly utilising local creative industry talent, the accompanying strapline is going to be “Love football, love sportsdirect.com @ St. James’ Park Stadium”.

Photograph by the effervescent Georgia Rakusen of Haus Projects

by Andrew Fenwick

Today local council leaders announced plans to move many popular businesses based in Newcastle’s Ouseburn Valley—including The Cluny and Cumberland Arms—to Gateshead.

Aimed at boosting profits in the recession, the move across the river—which will be funded by both Newcastle and Gateshead councils—will find companies able to take advantage of cheaper land prices and the relatively high disposable incomes of the many young professionals based at Baltic Quays.

Businesses currently based in the Ouseburn—which includes popular live music venue The Cluny—are anticipating a growth in sales once the move to the more prosperous ‘south side’ is complete.

The news hasn’t been welcomed by everyone, however. Many local music fans have said they will miss the rich industrial heritage of the area, and feel Gateshead quayside is better suited to the “chattering classes” who frequent establishments such as the multi-million pound Sage Gateshead complex.

Work on dismantling and rebuilding the Ouseburn is set to begin later this month.

This article originally appeared at Isolationist, a Newcastle-centric web publication providing information on news and events around town

—The man who owns a design and advertising firm with an airline on his client list that rents subsidised office space from Business Link due to lack of affordable office space in Newcastle city centre

—The man who started a web-design company and was told by Business Link that they would only give him startup funding if he spent a portion of it paying a company they recommended to design his website

—The sandwich shop owner who keeps fourteen thousand pounds in a tin in his wardrobe and that only paid fifty pounds in tax last year

—The small businessman who overheard the claims of the sandwich shop owner above, and now deals widely in the black economy

—The school caretaker who points to a significant oversupply of primary schools in Newcastle

—The primary teacher who has friends that are moving abroad due to lack of teaching jobs

—The A-level student that plans to study primary teaching in September on the advice of the careers service at her college

—The two men who usually work together on nightclubs that have received an eight thousand pound government grant to research educational software through an organisation that employs one of their girlfriends

—The musician known to an employee of a public funding body that was asked to draw up a five thousand pound list of equipment that he wanted as some funding was going spare

Grim reading for concerned northerners everywhere, however an old acquaintance from the punk rock scene should consider heading back to his home town of Belfast, where it seems his vision is well on the way.

Anyone not already lobotomised still claiming ‘the most right wing government in history’ please report to an NHS hospital, ideally in Staffordshire.