Gateshead Flyover closure: Government urged to step in as mayor warns 'we cannot carry on like this'

The Government has been urged to step up and resolve the future of the closed Gateshead Flyover, as local leaders warn Tyneside “cannot carry on like this”.

Council bosses closed the busy route, which carries around 40,000 vehicles every day, on Friday evening due to serious worries about its structural integrity. As motorists are urged to avoid the area amid concerns about the closure causing Christmas traffic chaos around Gateshead and Newcastle, it remains unclear what will become of the flyover. Engineers were carrying out more inspections on Monday to assess the condition of the 1960s-built structure as Gateshead Council tries to work out whether it will be feasible to reopen the flyover or the highway beneath it, at least partially, and what work will be needed to do that.

The deterioration of the elevated thoroughfare’s concrete has been a known problem for years and local authority chiefs admit that it will likely have to be demolished, with past plans dating back as far as 2008 having suggested replacing it with a tree-lined boulevard. Regardless of what option council bosses choose to pursue now, the likelihood is that a significant reinvention of the road network around Gateshead town centre will require considerable financial backing from the Government.

North East mayor Kim McGuinness said on Monday that she was working, alongside council leader Martin Gannon and MP Mark Ferguson, to “raise the profile of this issue very, very urgently with the Secretary of State for Transport, because we cannot carry on like this”. Speaking to the Northern Agenda newsletter in Leeds on Monday, the Labour mayor added: "Obviously, it's a really concerning situation, but what it is ultimately is an engineering failure. And so it's a very difficult decision the council have had to take, but they've taken the decision in the interest of safety."

The Department for Transport said it stood "ready" to help the council.

In 2008, Gateshead Council revealed ambitious designs to demolish the flyover and build a tree-lined boulevard in its place to help create a “town centre fit for a city”. That vision was also part of a £500 million plan published two years ago to increase walking and cycling across the North East. Senior Gateshead councillor John McElroy, the council’s cabinet member for transport, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service on Monday that the authority had been knocked back in previous funding bids for works on the flyover and hoped that Sir Keir Starmer’s administration would now be more receptive.

The council cabinet backed plans in 2019 to seek Government funding for an £18 million removal of the flyover, but the scheme was not awarded money from the Highway Maintenance Challenge Fund, and Coun McElroy said a further effort was also unsuccessful “two or three years ago”. The Labour councillor said: "We have been to the DfT many times in the past and, to be fair, we have realised that the maintenance issue on the bridge had been getting increasingly worse. Obviously it came last week that the engineers' concerns rose to such a level where they thought a closure was needed.

"We have pointed it out in the past and we are working with the Government at the moment to see what assistance will be available, both in the short term and ultimately the long term - because I think it is inevitable that the bridge will have to be demolished and we will have to have new arrangements for traffic in the centre of Gateshead."

Asked why the council had not been able to make progress on the flyover, more than a decade after the plans were first announced, he replied: "We have asked the question [of Government] before and presented a very good case for doing it, both in safety terms and for the redevelopment of the town centre. Sadly, the responses from the Government at the time were negative. We hope that the current Government will be more positive."

Coun McElroy added that it was “difficult to tell at the moment” what the future will hold for the flyover as engineers continue their inspections. He said: “They are still out there looking at whether we can do those short or medium term remedies to get more life out of the viaduct. But ultimately we have got to prepare ourselves, as we have for quite a while actually, to say that the life of the viaduct is very imminently going to go and we have to prepare for the future.”

He confirmed that the council was also in talks with Ms McGuinness’ North East Combined Authority (NECA) about how it could help with the redevelopment of the route. A £90 million “reconfiguration” of the road network in and around Gateshead town centre targeted for completion in 2030 is listed as part of an £8.7 billion NECA transport blueprint that is currently out for consultation, though it is unclear how that would be funded.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “While Gateshead Council is responsible for the maintenance of the Gateshead Flyover, we are ready to work with the Council to support them on their next steps.”

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