Newcastle City Council poised to pull plug on Urban Green and retake control of parks

Newcastle City Council is poised to pull the plug on the charity which runs the city’s parks.

Civic centre leaders look set to cut off funding to Urban Green Newcastle (UGN) and retake control over its assets. The decision, due to be made by the council’s cabinet on November 25, will mark a major climbdown from what was once hailed as a “pioneering” vision for Newcastle’s green spaces.

Urban Green was handed 125-year leases over 33 parks and more than 60 allotments by the city council in 2019, with Newcastle becoming the first major metropolitan authority in the UK to enact such a plan, but that arrangement will come to an end after less than six years. It was thought that a charitable trust would be able to access more funding and protect the parks’ future at a time of swingeing council budget cuts.

But major concerns have emerged this year about UGN’s finances, with the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) revealing in March that the imperilled charity was struggling to balance the books – requiring an extra £1 million of help from the council this year and forecasting a £6.7 million deficit up to 2029. It was originally hoped that, after an initial £7.7 million subsidy from the city council, Urban Green would become self-sustaining within a decade.

A cabinet report published on Friday reveals that, according to a council-commissioned analysis by Forvis Mazars, there is now “no evidence to suggest that UGN will be able to operate without ongoing and substantial financial support from the council for the foreseeable future”. As a result, the council’s Labour leadership is being recommended to cease funding to Urban Green and for the charity to be wound down – with plans to quickly bring its assets and roughly 40 staff, who have been informed of the handover this week, under the control of the civic centre by January 31, 2025.

The decision will come just weeks after UGN’s chief executive, Carol Pyrah, announced that she would be leaving the organisation at the end of November.

Higher costs, due to issues such as vandalism and meeting enhanced health and safety regulations, and lower than expected income are being blamed for UGN’s struggles – with the Covid pandemic said to have had a “significant impact” on its plans. A dispute with the city council that saw the authority impose restrictions on the number of large, money-generating festivals UGN was allowed to stage in Leazes Park and Exhibition Park, following noise complaints from residents, is also pinpointed as a key factor behind the reduced income in the cabinet report.

Alex Hay, the council’s deputy leader, told the LDRS that the Mazars review produced a “strong rationale” for taking the parks back in-house and that he believed doing so could lead to “markedly improved” relationships with residents and park friends groups. UGN has come in for criticism over its record of looking after some green spaces – including claims that it was treating the historic Leazes Park as a “cash cow” and anger when both it and Walker Park lost their prestigious Green Flag status this year.

Coun Hay added: “Nobody could have predicted what was coming in terms of the pandemic, which has undoubtedly had a massive impact in terms of UGN’s ability to become self-financing.” However, Coun Hay admitted that he had “no specific ideas” about what the council will do to generate more income to reinvest into the parks.

Mark Nicholson, the council’s director of finance, said that the authority would be “building on the work UGN have done to date”, particularly successes in developing its revenue from cafes, and also hoped to make better use of commercial properties within the parks. Asked if this would include the derelict Fisherman’s Lodge and the Banqueting Hall in Jesmond Dene, he admitted some assets were in “significant disrepair and will be more difficult to develop”.

Coun Hay later added that he hoped the council would be able to find “quick wins” to improve the efficiency of parks services, rather than “immediately focusing on how we generate additional income".

At the time of handover to Urban Green, the council had slashed annual parks budget from £2.58 million in 2010/11 to less than £1 million. But the council now says that a minimum of £1.5 million will be needed annually just to maintain the parks’ current state, warning that any improvements “will take time to achieve and will require additional resources” and that expectations “will therefore need to be carefully managed”.

Local authority officials are due to publish their budget-cutting plans for 2025/26 in the coming weeks, needing to find £24 million of savings. But, Coun Hay said: “The ambition is there. The administration is incredibly ambitious for Newcastle and we want to ensure that our parks are thriving, not just surviving.”

Similar to the recent return of around 25,000 council houses to the local authority’s management from Your Homes Newcastle, Mr Nicholson said that civic centre bosses are not fully aware of the state of the assets it will take back. He said: “We are working with Urban Green to find out what the state of the parks is. We don’t have that absolute, detailed, up-to-date information on the condition of the parks and assets. We are working all of that out and until we have that we can’t come up with a firm estimate of what it is going to cost us to make any improvements.”

Asked if he was concerned about the council uncovering more issues that would require major investment to resolve, the finance chief said that the authority would likely be responsible for those regardless given UGN’s reliance on its financial help and that having direct oversight offers “much more visibility and much more control”.

Jim Beirne MBE, Chair of Trustees at Urban Green Newcastle said: “We are disappointed that Newcastle City Council's Cabinet is considering a proposal for the management and care of the city’s parks and allotments to return to local authority control. We believe that the management of parks and allotments through an independent charity that works in close partnership with the council continues to be the right approach for the long-term future of Newcastle’s green spaces.

“Despite the challenges the charity has faced in its first five years, including a global pandemic and cost of living crisis, Urban Green Newcastle has performed well. We have secured substantial new income and funding, invested in biodiversity and nature, and improved our parks and allotments to ensure they are safer and better spaces for the city's residents to enjoy. We are proud of everything we have achieved, and hope the council continues this good work.

“If Cabinet decides to move forward with the proposed recommendation, we will work closely with Newcastle City Council over the next few months to ensure a smooth transition for the good of our staff and the city’s green spaces. We’d like to assure park and allotment users there will be no impact or disruption to how they use the city’s green spaces, and they can continue to visit and enjoy them as normal.”

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