Council aims to help Byker's Shields Road shed 'worst high street' tag

Byker's Shields Road has been criticised in several surveys

Council chiefs are hoping to rid a Tyneside high street of its reputation as the UK's worst.

Shields Road, in the Byker area of Newcastle, has been named Britain's least vibrant retail destination several times.

It is one of five areas in the city where grants of up to £25,000 are being made available for projects.

Jen Hartley, the council's head of economic development, said it would be "great" if the street shed its tag.

Other areas covered by the local authority's project are Chillingham Road, Heaton Road, Heaton Park Road and Welbeck Road.

It follows a £2.8m pilot scheme being launched earlier this year with the aim of bringing empty shops back into use and to fund public art and green spaces.

Ms Hartley said: "I think not being rated as the UK's worst high street would be really great.

"If that can go somewhere else in the country, I would be very happy with that.

"It is really about what residents can see. If we were to survey people at the end and they felt a greater sense of pride and welcoming and safety in their areas and told us they were using them more, that would be a success for me."

The scheme will see up to £25,000 made available for empty properties and up to £10,000 for events, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Ms Hartley told the council's economy, jobs and skills scrutiny committee that, since launching in March, the funding had helped towards the first Byker Arts Festival that will be held this summer.

Labour councillor Stephen Lambert gave his backing to the scheme and said middle-class parts of the city should not have a "monopoly" on pleasant public spaces.