(06 Jan 2022, 12:14 am)N391OTY wrote A very good question !!

Walkergate geographically is a very small area. Move within a quarter of a mile in any direction of Walkergate Metro station and you've left Walkergate, and are in Byker or Heaton or Walkerville or Walker. The only sites I can think of are

1. an area of wasteland on Benfield Road directly opposite the end of Appletree Gardens. That is adjacent to Benfield Park hospital and health centre, but I doubt the NHS would be impressed with the pollution from ancient minibuses drifting into their grounds. Mind you, they already have to contend with noise and pollution from the nearby Heaton railway depot and sidings.

2. areas of wasteland on both sides of Shields Road near the Siemens (Parsons) works. Arguably, these areas are probably in Byker anyway, being close to where the old Newcastle Corporation Byker bus depot used to be.

3. a corner of the yard in the Stagecoach Walkergate depot.

My money is on option 3 given Arriva's reluctance to spend unnecessary money at the moment, and could be attractive to Stagecoach as well, if ever they wanted a few more local services to take over in the Newcastle area. All this assumes that the new depot is only for minibuses, of course.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to work with (or demolish) but I have a feeling that it might be on the old Heaton Track Maintenance Depot found here - https://goo.gl/maps/aAoKSdyQ5rKWs6dXA

I have a feeling both that and Blyth are short term anyway until a proper depot is built somewhere with them merged but they don't want to spend the money I assume until Blyth is sold. It's literally in the plans for Blyth Town Centre so has to move.

The redevelopment just seems to be knocking a roof down and putting a fence up give or take anyway.