Tyne for a move north?

5 April 2012

The view across the Tyne is startling, the restaurants as diverse as those in Notting Hill, the contemporary art gallery as imposing as Tate Modern and the nightlife some of the best in Europe. And a threebedroom penthouse apartment in the city centre, overlooking the river, costs less than £250,000.

Welcome to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, a city that America's Newsweek magazine describes as one of the top eight creative cities in the world, and the only British one that made it on to the list.

It is two-and-a-half hours from London by fast train and an hour and 15 minutes by the commuter plane from Stansted Airport. And once in the city, overlooked by the Angel of the North, you are only minutes from some of the most remote and romantic countryside in Britain.

The Baltic, a stunning 3,000sq m gallery converted from a 1950s flour mill on the south bank of the river Tyne, has already won a reputation as one of Britain's foremost modern art galleries. Together with the RIBA Stirling Award-winning Millennium Bridge, the Hatton Gallery, music venue King's Hall, Newcastle's Playhouse and the Moorbank Botanic Garden, it made the city the favourite to win European Capital of Culture 2008, before it narrowly missed out to Liverpool.

In business terms, the city that used to be known for coal and shipbuilding has been re-inventing itself and is now drawing high fliers from around Britain, in particular from London, to work and live there.

Small companies are finding that they can do business in the capital from a base in Newcastle, where workers can afford the kind of spacious and fashionable properties that would be out of their reach in London.

Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway, for example, the founders of streetwear label Red or Dead, are designing avant- g arde, pedestrian-friendly homes at the Staiths South Bank project on the banks of the river, a short walk from the centre of Newcastle.

In the hub, The Turnbull, a Grade II listed Victorian industrial building, is being transformed into a set of trendy apartments with flats from £189,950. In the middle of the shopping district, the mixed- use Grey Street complex boasts one of the city's most luxurious penthouse apartments.

With three bedrooms, a Philippe Starck bathroom, Bulthaup kitchen and a stunning spiral staircase leading to the second floor, it is a fraction of the price of its London counterpart at £425,000. Slightly further out is the Barrack Court complex, with two-bedroom apartments starting at £244,950. All are available through Chesterton (0191 211 1030).

"We are finding more and more Londoners are coming to the North-East because it is cheap to live here and the quality of life is great," said Darren Waller from property consultant Chesterton. "The old industrial parts of the city centre are being dramatically developed and a lot of properties outside of the city are at least half the price of the equivalent houses in London and the Home Counties."

John and Fiona Raglan set up their market research company, Dipsticks, in an old farmhouse set in six acres overlooking the Cheviot Hills. Their office, half an hour's drive from Newcastle, was a wreck when they bought it in 1997, but with the help of grants from the North East Development Agency they restored the old agricultural buildings into a headquarters that houses a workforce of 10.

"The distance from London is no barrier to business," says John, who spends two days a week in the capital. The couple's clients include Capital Radio, London Taxi Advertising, Sainsbury's and Unilever. "Nowadays nobody minds where you are located. If people want face-to-face meetings with us we can be in London by 9am. The only drawback is when they try to bike stuff to us."

John believes it was The Tube, Channel 4's iconic 1980s music show fronted by Jools Holland and Paula Yates, broadcast live from Newcastle, which started the city's change of image. "The show proved that the city had moved on from flat caps and whippets," says John, whose only difficulty with living so far from London has been installing the huge number of telephone lines the company needs and getting planning permission for an extra-large satellite dish. "The planning people were fine after I agreed to paint the dish to blend in with its surroundings."

In nearby Hexham, innovative brothers Andrew and Mike Bottomley run Hepple furniture. Their showroom is in Chelsea Harbour and their clients include Harrods, interior designers Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill and George Renwick and furniture store Albrissi in Sloane Square. The company recently upholstered a pair of handmade chairs in crocodile skin that sold at auction for £40,000.

"There has been a history of upholstering in the North-East and so the quality of the workforce is much better up here," says Mike. "There is nowhere else in the country we could find the necessary skilled upholsterers we need."

Former Londoner Mike, who worked in the City for 16 years, decided that there had to be more to life than sitting in front of a computer screen and decided to set up the bespoke furnishing business with his interior designer brother Andrew five years ago.

Now, 80 per cent of the business is in London and, except for the cost of transporting the bespoke chairs and sofas, neither of the brothers believe that working in Northumberland is a disadvantage in the predominantly capital-based cutthroat world of interior decoration and furnishing. "Our clients use us because of the quality of our work, not where we are based," says Andrew.

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