Directly next to Dunston Staiths lies the Staiths South Bank Development. Its design emerged after the fashion designer, Wayne Hemingway, criticised property developers for the “Wimpeyfication” of Britain. This sparked Wimpey to work with the designer, Gateshead Council and others in order to secure planning permission for a unique housing development on former Gateshead Garden Festival land.

In 2003, the first Staiths South Bank properties went on sale. Their future inhabitants could choose the elevation, layout and housing type. A number of features were designed in to make the development more sustainable such as responsibly-sourced cladding. In addition, recycling is communal and there is limited space for cars to encourage more walking and cycling. The first phase of the development sold out within four hours. Wayne Hemingway has recently written a blog post considering the scheme 13 years after he wrote his initial scathing views about contemporary house building.

Whilst Staiths South Bank comprises of relatively new residents, the communities in Dunston and Teams have been established for a much longer period of time. However, many sections of these communities can be considered to be deprived on a number of levels, and have been since the decline of industries such as coal. There has also been much regeneration work and there will be more in the future. At present, Clasper Village in Teams is being demolished. This adds to the recent demolition of “the Dunston Rocket”. Both may be considered to be “failed” housing developments from the 1960s.

Teams, in particular, will also be one of the focus areas of ‘Big Local Gateshead’, a programme which is aiming to develop community skills in order to create better places to live in by building trust, pride in the area and local involvement.

Gateshead Council has undertaken a number of public art projects in and around Dunston and Teams. For example, along the Riverside Park there are a number of works which have been developed with community involvement. The Riverside Rivets (2010) by Andrew McKeown have names of nearby communities marked upon them.

Initially, we identified three distinct communities:
• Artists and Designers
• Urban Professionals
• Geographic Communities

Not long after the project began, we undertook a stakeholder mapping activity to understand all of those who are concerned about Dunston Staiths, how they connected to one another, and the range of their concerns. Here, we are inspired by work on ‘Mapping Architectural Controversies’, which was part of the EU-funded MACOSPOL project.

This was done by analysing publicly available resources such as newspaper articles, policy documents, and websites. As the Jetty Project evolves we will be able to see how the different actors involved and the concerns expressed mutate and realign over time.

The image shows the initial mapping, which was created using the open-source NodeXL plug-in. The lines represent connections. The dots represent the actors – both human and non-human – who are weighted in terms of the number of times that they are appear in the public documents. The colour of the dots represents different concerns.

They used to lead coal trains out over the water to pour their loads into ships moored alongside.

As a powerful reminder of our mining heritage they stand proud over the landscape.

Dunston Staithes in Gateshead

But since they were abandoned with the demise of the coal industry they’ve been sadly neglected and have fallen victim to vandalism and two fires.

For the most part the 120-year-old wooden structure has survived.

In the next few days the group hoping to save the Staithes will hear whether its grant application to the Heritage Lottery Fund has been approved.

Long term, the aim is to turn the Staithes into an inland pier.

It could be a real attraction, especially if it proves as popular as New York’s High Line – an aerial park created out of an old elevated freight line.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25137922

The Dunston Staithes in Gateshead played a crucial role in the transport of millions of tons of coal. The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded almost £420,000 to restore the landmark and open it up to the public for the first time. The wooden staiths was closed in 1980 and abandoned with the demise of the coal industry and have since fallen victim to vandalism and two fires. The 130-year-old staiths was built by the North Eastern Railway at a cost of £210,000 and is thought to be the largest timber structure in Britain.

Martin Hulse, from the Tyne and Wear Building Preservation Trust, said the staiths are “an iconic symbol of the region’s industrial heritage”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-25390335

The venture will seek to act as a catalyst for action over the listed Dunston Staithes on Gateshead’s riverfront, which is a scheduled monument but is on English Heritage’s At Risk register.

The Staiths, thought to be the biggest timber structure in Europe and one of the last survivors of a coal trade which underpinned Tyneside and the North East, has been damaged by vandals and arsonists.

The staiths were gifted to the Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust in 1996 and the body has been striving to find ways of saving the structure. It has welcomed the arts project, which will be led by Newcastle University’s Professor of Contemporary Sculpture Wolfgang Weileder.

http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/art-project-plan-historic-dunston-6397812

Please join us to celebrate the launch of a major new AHRC funded art-based research project – Jetty. Led by Newcastle University and in collaboration with the University of Manchester, Jetty will investigate how a practice-led fine art project can meaningfully contribute to the multi-faceted debate around sustainability.