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Council to replace 1,200 litter bins with 800 new ones

New litter bins for High West Jesmond

After a recent review of citywide litter bins, Newcastle City Council has announced a planned 13-week programme to replace existing bins.

The review was aimed at identifying ways of improving the current litter storage and collection service across the city.

Newcastle presently has just over 2,100 litter bins and the council review highlighted areas where bins were in disrepair, being under used by the public, or were too small to meet demand.

The change in litter bins will impact High west Jesmond with some bins being replaced with larger bins; some resited; and some potentially fully removed.

800 less litter bins

The amount of bins will be reduced to 800 but the the council says that total capacity for holding litter will only fall by approximately 450 litres as the new stock of bins will be bigger in size.  

The council review also identified that in some areas street bins were being misused by traders and householders, who were using them for business and residential purposes. The new bins will initially be emptied weekly but the volume of waste will be monitored on a regular basis.

The city council also delivers the ‘Keep it Clean’ campaign, which is aimed at encouraging behavioural change amongst people who litter, fly-tip and don’t pick up after their pets in Newcastle. 

Cllr Nick Kemp, Newcastle City Council cabinet member for Neighbourhoods and Regulatory Services, (pictured above) said: “The new bins will be an asset to the city as the council tries to tackle the litter problem throughout Newcastle. The positioning and locations have been specially chosen using the knowledge gathered from our dedicated collection team – who recognise the litter hotspot areas.

“The new scheme of robust and solid bins makes it a far more effective collection service. The new bins will be located in areas where the most litter is generated, and are larger than the previous street litter bins. All of the efficiency changes are in line with the council’s green city agenda. 

“The review was aimed at providing answers to questions that will help us deliver a better service for residents. This coupled with our continued enforcement campaign that looks to deter people from dropping litter in the first place, and penalise those people who don’t care about the community in which they live or visit.”

The old citywide bins, once removed, will be recycled and reused.

For further information about the council’s ‘Keep it Clean’ campaign, please visit newcastle.gov.uk/keepitclean​​​​​​​

Photograph from Newcastle City Council website.

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1967 – Moorfield, Newcastle 50 years ago

A little nostalgia, here’s Moorfield 50 years ago this month

A heritage post by Chris Morgan

In those days Moorfield was a rat run from the A1 Great North Road out of Gosforth to Osborne Road.

This was a quiet evening, and by modern standards there weren’t too many cars. Today, the whole of High West Jesmond is packed with cars, including many park-and-ride users of Ilford Road Metro station.

The trees in the grassy verge in this picture were all planted as saplings in 1956. Some died, some may have been cut down, but those that remain are quite large now!

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1962 – The Valley and Little Dene, or Blackies Valley, Newcastle being filled in

Little Dene, aka Blackies Valley, or what was left of it before they finally filled it in, around 1962

A heritage post by Chris Morgan

This small stream flows east from high on the Newcastle Town Moor near Kenton Bar, and formed the boundary between the City and County of Newcastle upon Tyne and Gosforth, which was then in Northumberland. Ultimately it joins the Ouse Burn just beyond the foot of Matthew Bank where it is known as Craghall Dene.

It flowed below the Great North Road roughly where Moor Road now joins Moorfield, that point being known as Little Bridge. By the time the large house Little Dene was built on Lodore Road the stream was in a culvert, probably beside the south side of Moor Road. It emerged to the north-east side of the old house through an ornamental angelic water feature in the garden, then flowed at the north side of Lodore Road until the bottom of Newlands Road.

An open culvert (no gating of any kind to prevent entry) then took the stream to the bottom of Mathew Bank. Braver boys than I said they’d worked their way all the way through! The wooden structure at the base of this picture is immediately above that entry.

The Blyth and Tyne railway was built on an embankment across the dene, but that small culvert was extended when material from the clearance of the Forth goods depot was used to broaden the embankment, sufficiently for the building of houses on Ilford Road and Newlands Avenue – and possibly parts of Lodore road itself. The Craghall Dene side of the railway has also been filled at various dates almost up to Matthew Bank.

This picture was taken from the bottom of Newlands Avenue, looking towards Lodore Road and the bottom of Albemarle Avenue. By this time the trees, mostly willow, had been cleared off and the line of the new culvert had been excavated. I think the rubble subsequently used to fill this area came from demolished slum housing in Shieldfield, where tower blocks were built. This site is now a gently sloping grassy area.

Before this it had been a more natural dene, with willow trees, and some sloping allotments on the Gosforth northern side. The south side next to Lodore Road was steeper, comprising building rubble that must have been dumped to make the High West Jesmond site more level when Lodore Road was formed.

Note the line of wooden garages on Lodore Road. These could be hired, 2 or 3 storing small Ford vans for the delivery of milk by Jesmond Farm Dairies on Newlands Avenue (where the convenience store is now). Others were used by local residents. In 1962 very few cars were kept overnight on the roads.

North Jesmond Garge on Lodore Road, just to the left of this picture, was then Jones Garage with 3 petrol pumps – hand operated. At night it also stored residents cars. In 1968 I paid 10/- a week to keep my 1952 Morris Minor there.

Incidentally, North Jesmond originally referred to the part further to the east of the railway, towards Matthew Bank – the garage should really be called High West Jesmond Garage!

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1964 – The original Little Dene house on Lodore Road

The original house known as Little Dene Lodore Road, High West Jesmond, Newcastle, 1964

A heritage post by Chris Morgan

The largest property in High West Jesmond by a very substantial margin was Little Dene. Named after the small dene that ran from the Little Bridge on the A1, also known as Craghall Dene nearer it’s confluence with the Ouseburn at the top of Jesmond Dene.

The stream, the Craghall Burn, formed the boundary between the city and county of Newcastle upon Tyne and the county of Northumberland. It joins the Ouse Burn at the bottom of Matthew Bank. The greater part was filled in by spoil from the construction of the railway yards in the Manors area, allowing the railway to run on the level between Jesmond Dene Road and South Gosforth. The High West Jesmond and North Jesmond estates were partially built on this land.

The stream used to run at the bottom of the Little park, beside Moor Road South, at the end of Moorfield until it was reclaimed from moorland in time for the Coronation in 1953. The stream by then had been culvetted from the west side of the Great North Road, emerging in the garden of Little Dene.

By 1964 Little Dene was badly run down, occupied by an old witch – or so we kids were led to believe! In 1950 it was still occupied by the son of it’s builder, bachelor Alexander Pringle, a brother and a spinster sister. In the 1920’s and 1930’s it had been a very smart house, painted white each year and known locally as the White House. Garden parties were held in aid of charities.

By the 1950’s the garden was badly overgrown, the covered stream emerging from beneath the house into an angelic fountain feature that was almost hidden from view – except to small boys trespassing!

Sadly, renovation seemed to be out of the question and demolition soon followed this picture being taken. By 1970 the site had been redeveloped into Little Dene flats.

This autumn picture illustates how well hidden such a large house was, even at that time of year.

Information from WorldInfoZone:

“Alexander Pringle of Cranmer Dykes, Gateshead built St George’s Church in Gateshead; the Rutherford Memorial College, Bath Lane; King Edward School of Art and the School of Bacteriology at Armstrong College; the Commercial Union Insurance Building in Pilgrim Street; Collingwood Buildings in Collingwood Street and Tilley’s Rooms and the YMCA in Blackett Street as well as the Gateshead Cenotaph in Shipcote. Alexander Pringle was also responsible for the reconstruction of The Palace Theatre and the Empire Palace Theatre (Empire Theatre) in Newgate Street.

Further information has confirmed that Alexander Pringle was the builder of the RVI (Royal Victoria Infirmary) which opened in 1901. His name is on the original entrance hall of the hospital. Other buildings included a police station, co-operative stores, breweries and schools. He also built Little Dene in Gosforth where he lived with his family.”

Not completely right. The house itself was in Newcastle, although the garden was partially in Gosforth.

The park in the foreground had been part of the Little Moor when my mother used to play in the rough ground beside it’s northern stone wall. At that time Moorfield did not run out onto the Great North Road, stopping at it’s junction with Lodore Road. I recall the park being laid out in time for the Coronation in 1953, when it was known as the Little Park.

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1964 – Embankment fires between Ilford Road and Albury Road

When Ilford Road Metro station wasn’t on any agenda, and before the old electric trains were scrapped to be replaced by diesel multiple units

A heritage posting from Chris Morgan

This picture is taken from the overbridge on Moorfield and shows the embankment on both sides of the line had been set alight by sparks from a steam hauled freight train that had passed earlier that spring evening.

This is now the position of the Ilford Road Metro station. A 4 coach Tyneside commuter multiple unit electric has just passed and is roughly where Metro platforms now stand. These trains used to run in 2, 4, 6 or 8 coach sets. At busy summer weekends a special pram coach was often added to 6 coach trains to help get young families to the coast. The pram coaches were older coaches retained from the previous style stock, similar to those used on the South Tyne line to South Shields.

Not too long after this photo was taken it was decided not to replace these old LNER electric units and to replace them with DMUs. They were not to operate as frequent a service, and were noisier. Usage dropped sharply. Amazingly, the finance was assembled to build the Metro system. This part of the track retained the old wooden sleepers, still showing traces of where the third rail had been supported, until the track was relaid with concrete sleepers in August 2013.

This part of Newcastle is called High West Jesmond. Due to it’s proximity to Gosforth fire engines were despatched from both the Northumberland fire station at Gosforth and Newcastle Central fire station. Usually the Gosforth brigade would have the fire out before the Newcastle engine arrived. On this day there was enough work for both!

The Northumberland crew are working in heavy helmets. The Newcastle crew are bare headed.

Read more about the NER Tyneside electric multiple units

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Be careful what you place in your rubbish bin

People are going through the rubbish for goods to sell on Ebay

The issue has recently been promoted by Newcastle City Council.

Watch the video to hear Neil Parsons, a recycling wagon driver explain more about this issue.

Newcastle City Council is looking for ideas from residents on how to tackle the problems of rubbish and has recently set up the Newcastle Waste Commission to consider this issue. You can read more on the Newcastle Waste Commission website.

High West Jesmond Residents’ Association does not believe that the planned rollout of further communal bins are part of the answer. Damage caused by people searching through communal bins for goods to sell on Ebay illustrated in the film is just one issue associated with communal bins and High West Jesmond residents are strongly opposed to the introduction of communal bins.

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