Gateway challenges and opportunities for Wallsend

Anyone who watched the final stage of the Tour de France, as the riders entered the Champs Elysees past the magnificent Arc de Triomphe, has felt the power of a sense of arrival.

In architecture and urban design, the psychological and emotional impact and symbolic resonance of entry routes and gateway points has been recognised since ancient times. They can take your breath away, or make you feel welcome. Or not.

Cities around the world have recognised this, and have often deliberately designed entry routes and gateway points to create a powerful and positive experience of arrival.

For visitors, such experiences can provide a key first impression or an abiding memory for their encounter with a place.

I remember the first time I saw Newcastle. It was at night, and I drove in via the old Pacific Highway route, through Charlestown and over the ridge-line before the City Road descent . Not exactly the Champs Elysees, but the spectacle of the lights of the city spread out below did the job for me.

The F3 Freeway changed all that. Now, the first impression most new arrivals have of Newcastle is the Newcastle Link Rd and the Lake Road/Thomas Street roundabout at Wallsend. The first significant building they encounter is the F1 Hotel.

As a gateway to create a sense of arrival it has its problems. True, drivers can glimpse the pleasant greenery of Wallsend Park, but there's nothing that - either directly or symbolically - conveys to a visitor that they are welcome, or have arrived at a place that might have something special to offer.

This presents both a challenge and an opportunity.

Development will inevitably spread along the Link Rd (and who picked that as the name for our main gateway route?). How we develop and maintain that route, and what we do at the key entry point, will determine the first impression many visitors will have of Newcastle.

We need to seize this opportunity before the chance to do something significant passes us by.

This issue emerged at a recent community workshop conducted by the Wallsend Business Improvement Association as part of updating its strategic plan for the Wallsend Town Centre.

Workshop participants noted the potential to present what Wallsend has to offer to visitors entering Newcastle from the F3: its rich history and heritage, its "country village" character, and its proximity to major emerging eco-tourism attractions such as the Blue Gums Hills Regional Park and the Hunter Wetlands.

To complement this, participants saw opportunities to promote the new Tramway Cycleway from Glendale to Wallsend, to find new ways to present the area's history and heritage, and to develop new accommodation and visitor facilities in the area.

These ideas could form part of a Newcastle Gateway Strategy, aimed at recognising and taking advantage of Wallsend's gateway status and potential.

This will have to begin with the basics. At the moment, this key entry site doesn't even provide basic information for visitors to find out what the area has to offer.

The need for some sort of conveniently accessed visitor information facility emerged as one of the key points from the Wallsend workshop.

How the new council that is elected in September responds to this will have a significant impact on the future commercial health and character of both Wallsend and the rest of Newcastle.