Former Gregg's Factory - Brown-Field Housing Bid

As most of you know Gregg's have all but moved out of the industrial estate at the end ofChriston Rdin Gosforth. All of the East Gosforth Councillors met with the Gregg's CEO and his management team to discuss future use. We were all in agreement that the preferred option would be for the site to be used for new affordable housing. We asked for a study of the site to assess the feasibility of this course of action.

The assessment was carried out just before Christmas by council surveyors and unfortunately it has been determined that the land is not suitable for housing. It would require a lengthy and expensive land assembly exercise, and would also involve attempting to relocate a number of the other local established business on the site.

Councillor Peter Leggott said, "We are all disappointed by this outcome. We hoped that new housing at this site would help in our campaign to stop the council's headlong and ill considered rush to use green-belt land for housing."

There does however appear to be a general agreement that the industrial estate is unsuitable for the type of heavy usage we saw from Gregg's, which was after all one of the reasons for the bakery moving away from there. So we will certainly press for lighter industrial uses in future.