Troubled Waygood Gallery gets a fresh start

Jul 5 2010 by David Whetstone, The Journal

ARTISTS will start moving into city centre studios today turning a new page in what has been an extraordinary and often troubled saga.

A fraction over £10m - millions more than had originally been intended - has been spent on creating the new High Bridge Studios, Newcastle, formerly known as Waygood.

The job is now all but done, according to Tony Durcan, Newcastle City Council’s head of culture, libraries and lifelong learning.

Only an inner courtyard and a few finishing touches are still to be completed before the builders, Rok, vacate the premises, Mr Durcan said.

“It is all very positive. We are expecting about 38 artists to move in over the next week or so and most of the studios are let,” he said.

“This project was always seen as something that would help to animate High Bridge and we hope that will be the case.”

The recently renamed High Bridge Studios include 29 artists’ studios with some of the new tenants planning to share.

It is five years since the artists based at the former Waygood relocated to the council-owned Harkers Building on Shields Road, Byker.

The temporary move became prolonged as the High Bridge redevelopment hit a series of well-documented snags which saw the cost of the project soar.

In the meantime, some of the Waygood artists moved out of the Harkers Building and new ones moved in.