Residents fear changes as student block plans are passed

REDEVELOPMENT of one of Newcastle's biggest student accommodation sites risks making life “impossible” for a neighbouring village, residents fear.

- DANIEL HOLLAND

Locals in Spital Tongues have been left aghast at the £274m plans to rebuild Newcastle University’s Castle Leazes halls, which were approved by the city council’s planning committee last month.

On top of concern about how the area will cope with an influx of hundreds more students than could be housed in the now-demolished halls which dated back to the 1960s, opponents of the scheme worry that it could forever alter the character of the city’s historic Town Moor.

The plans will see a fenced tarmac footpath built across Leazes Moor to connect the expanded Castle Leazes complex to Richardson Road.

Spital Tongues resident Richard Temperley said that they were given just a couple of weeks’ notice about a move that he fears will stop the moor’s famous cows from grazing that fenced-off area, in front of the houses on Belle Grove Terrace, and risks that patch becoming “scrubland” which he worries could become a future target for developers.

The 49-year-old, who lived at Castle Leazes as a student and was persuaded to stay in the city partly because of the unique life next to the moor, said: “The moor and the cows are very special for a lot of people in Newcastle.