Green Light for First Phase of £100m South Shields 365 Masterplan

The long-running effort to reshape the heart of South Shields has cleared an important hurdle. South Tyneside Council's planning committee has approved the first phase of the £100m South Shields 365 masterplan, moving the town-centre transformation from drawings towards construction.

What has been approved

Phase one centres on a new Central Library and Digital Media Centre near Ferry Street on the Riverside, designed by North East architects FaulknerBrowns. The building is intended to be far more than a place to borrow books: alongside library services it will house digital and cultural facilities, giving the town a modern civic hub close to the river.

The approval also covers improvements to the adjoining Market Place and related public-realm works, knitting the new building into the existing town centre rather than leaving it as an island.

Part of a bigger picture

South Shields 365 is a phased plan drawn up by the council with development partners to breathe new life into the town centre over several years. The ambition has always been to give people reasons to come into the centre throughout the year — the "365" in the name — with culture, leisure and public space as much as retail.

Best for: With phase one approved, attention turns to construction of the new Central Library and Digital Media Centre and the improvements to the surrounding Market Place.

Regular visitors will already know The Word, the National Centre for the Written Word, which anchored an earlier stage of the town-centre revamp. The new phase builds on that momentum, adding cultural and digital facilities a short walk away on the riverside.

The planning decision was reported by CLADglobal, with further detail on the wider scheme available through South Tyneside Council.

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