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Ouseburn Futures

Ouseburn Futures formed in Summer 2012, as a successor to the former Ouseburn Management Board (OMB). The Trust has representatives on the Board and its groups, through staff and Trustees' involvement. Although Ouseburn Futures is an independent body, the Trust has been involved in its establishment.

In March 2013, Sue Bright, Chair of Ouseburn Futures, signed the agreement with David Slater from Newcastle City Council, which sees Ouseburn Futures taking ownership of the Ouseburn Regeneration Plan. Here, Cllr. Henri Murison is joined by Pam Briggs, Chair of Ouseburn Trust, and Sue Bright on the roof of the Toffee Factory where the handover took place.

Photograph by John Hipkin, Trust Volunteer

 

 

Dale Bolland has summarised Ouseburn Futures' activity:

 

Ouseburn organises itself

Ouseburn businesses, organisations and individuals are organising  themselves to take the regeneration of the area forward, to solve key issues, support each other and present a united front to outside bodies including the local council.  So far five groups have been formulated to look at specific aspects of the Ouseburn Valley:

Visitor and Events group

Ouseburn family visitor attractions have been jointly organising for this summer including cross marketing.   ‘A’ boards outside venues advertising what’s on at other venues and carrying out visitor surveys.  The intention is to expand this group to cover music, art, heritage and key Ouseburn events calendar. Contact : Peter Kay

PDDP group

Is influencing the physical development of Ouseburn, design, planning, transport.  With input from Northern Architecture, this group is updating planning and design documents that determine planning application decisions and organising local input to development proposals. Contact : Sheila Spencer

Environment group

Is making sure Ouseburn looks good and is safe – looking at maintenance issues, green spaces, traffic, the rivers. There’s a small group gathering information on current issues. First open meeting during September. Contact  Dave Cross

Business group

Ouseburn is a key employment and business area in Newcastle.  Alongside established businesses, the creative cluster in Newcastle has emerged here with the area now home to over 400 businesses.  How can we, together help our businesses grow? How can Ouseburn get economic development resources?  Contact : Sue Bright, Cllr Nick Kemp, Tim Bailey

Arts and Culture group

There are over 150 studios in the Ouseburn.  We need more representation from this group. Contact: Martin Ellis

Ouseburn Valley Board

It is proposed to draw representation from each of the five groups above to form a co-ordinating group, which will be able to deal directly with Newcastle City Council on behalf of the whole Ouseburn Valley area.

 

 

For more information about the Ouseburn Futures and details of forthcoming meetings, please visit its website here.

A diagram of its structure can be downloaded here.

Download the Ouseburn Regneration Plan here.

 

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