(31 May 2015, 8:48 pm)MurdnunoC wrote The chronicle article also mentions the Caterpillar Monorail and the narrow gauge railway. Presumably neither would have been cheap to construct. You might have thought Gateshead Council (and other stakeholders) would have been keen to capitalise on these two attractions and make a little bit of money from them after the close of the festival. While I'm not a big fan of narrow gauge railways, they do seem to attract tourists. As far as I'm aware, aside from a path, nothing has been built on the course of the line. I can't help to think the council missed a trick there.
I wonder what difference the Newcastle/Gateshead initiative or NECA would have made, if they were around then or the festival was repeated now?
The council did miss out and fail to capatilise, but I wonder how much of that was down to naivety and how much was down to their hands being tied by the tory government of the time. We all know what they were like (and still are) for their love of private enterprise stepping up and making a few bob over the taxpayer benefiting via local/central government initiatives.