Strategic Constraints and Issues

The quality of the local environment, and perceived ‘quality of life’ issues, are often linked with the detrimental effect of through traffic to an area. Gateshead town centre currently suffers from traffic, much of whose origin or destination is probably Newcastle. As previously noted, this is largely due to the excellent connectivity enjoyed by both Gateshead and Newcastle, and Gateshead’s position relative to the road network south of Newcastle.

Removal of an amount of this through traffic, moving between Newcastle and the national or sub-regional road network, would be desirable for Gateshead. However, addressing this issue is not straightforward, largely because of the physical constraint imposed by the Tyne. Traffic which currently crosses the Tyne Bridge would need to re-route onto either the Tyne Tunnel, the A1, the Redheugh Bridge or an entirely new river crossing.

The Tyne Tunnel, in reality, is not likely to be seen by most motorists as an alternative route to the Tyne Bridge. It is tolled, has excessive congestion and is a longer route compared with the Tyne Bridge. Even if the proposed additional bore for the tunnel is implemented, it is expected that very little additional traffic accessing Newcastle City Centre will be attracted to use it, instead of the Tyne Bridge.

Funding from Central Government for widening of the A1 around Newcastle is unlikely to be forthcoming unless Tyneside has Demand Management strategies in place. This is because there are fears that any increase in capacity will quickly be used up by local traffic, and the benefit of the scheme eroded. Strategic schemes such as this are only likely to come to fruition beyond the Regeneration Framework timescale.

The Redheugh bridge has spare capacity and could in theory attract more traffic from Askew Road and Tyne Bridge. However, on the north side, it does not allow for an easy connection onto the Central Motorway, or areas to the east of the City Centre. As such, its potential to relieve Gateshead may not be realised without road building within Newcastle, which is unlikely to occur within the RF period.

An additional Tyne crossing between the Tyne Bridge and the Tyne Tunnel, to enable downgrading of the Tyne Bridge to a local road, seems extremely unlikely in the foreseeable future. The major issues would be environmental impact, cost, timescale, lack of location to connect into the road network on the north side, and the redundancy of the southern end of the Central Motorway, if Tyne Bridge is indeed downgraded. In summary, this is not expected to be feasible within the Regeneration Framework timescale, or for some considerable time beyond.