Updated September 2026
There has been a lot of media coverage over the 18 months about the potential re-building of St James Park in Leazes Park. Save Newcastle Wildlife presented a petition to the June 2025 Council meeting asking for a referendum before any agreement is made.
Newcastle City Council, in its comments to the media and in the response given to the petition, has said that there is no current planning application and that all applications are subject to public consultation.
There would be two things, however required for the use of Leazes Park. The first is that the club would have to acquire the land and the second is that they would have to get planning permission. Newcastle City Council owns the park and would have to sell or lease the land to the club. So why are they pretending that their only involvement would be with a planning application?
I am personally opposed to any loss of green space in the city centre and think that Leazes Park, the first people’s park, should be retained.
I also have huge concerns about the city doing business with Saudi Arabia, an undemocratic state with an appalling human rights record. (Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund owns 85% of the club.) As a minimum, Newcastle City Council should be speaking out in support of the human rights activists in Saudi Arabia, and making clear that Newcastle will not be used to launder Saudi Arabia’s reputation. If they want a better reputation, then they need to behave better.
As a ward councillor, however, my main role was to make sure that people’s voices were heard. So I campaigned for full public consultation on the sale of any public land to the club and independent verification of the value of any deal to the city.
I’ve tried questions to Cabinet Members during the previous Labour administration, FOIs and direct approaches to the Leaders of the Lib Dems and Greens.
I’ve listed the questions I’ve asked and the responses that I’ve had below. I’ve not had much success!
I did get a response from Coun Nick Hartley, Leader of The Greens over the summer:
“The challenge with the issue you are raising is that I have no information other than the information that was shared that no planning application has been received. I, and we as the Green Party, do have a genuine commitment to local democracy and the rights of residents to have a say in the decisions that affect them, and I know that we will do this as and when we can.”
Shortly afterwards I saw this report in The Chronicle about land that “Despite previously denying knowledge of any impending planning application next to Newbiggin Dene, it has emerged Newcastle City Council already has a potential land sale deal in place.”
Looks like the council has decided that pretending the only issue is planning is a good way to avoid scrutiny of difficult topics. I wonder what deal they’ve reached for Leazes Park and when they will get round to telling us?
(The council has agreed to hold an extraordinary meeting about the Newbiggin land sale. But they’ve decided to hold it straight after the October meeting, which will make it difficult for residents to attend. Purely unintentional I’m sure.)
Who owns Leazes Park and what process would have to be followed if the council wanted to dispose of it?
I repeatedly asked the council to clarify who owned the land and the process that would be needed to dispose of it. I eventually got an answer from Coun Dan Greenhough, Cabinet Member for Economy, Jobs and Skills:
What is the legal status of Leazes Park (E.g. Is it owned by Newcastle City Council? Or by the City of Newcastle upon Tyne? Is there any legal distinction between the two? Are there any covenants or restrictions on the land?).
The site is held by The Council of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne. This is typically the designation given to land/buildings owned by Newcastle City Council. A very small part of the site (south-west corner) is covered by a restriction in relation to any disposal meeting the requirements of the Localism Act but there are no restrictive covenants stated for the wider site. There are a number of deeds/easements in place with various utilities companies for cables and pipes.
What process would have to be followed for the disposal of a city asset?
There are predominantly two. The first would be when a site/building is declared surplus to Council requirements. In this scenario we would typically market the property for sale and invite bids. The bids would be assessed and we would typically recommend the highest bid that can be reasonably expected to achieve planning permission. We would engage with Planning colleagues early to provide a steer on the bids and then follow the usual consultation process with internal departments (e.g. Legal Services, Finance & Net Zero team) as well as consultation with ward councillors and members. The alternative disposal process would be a direct disposal to a Special Purchaser. Examples include someone who already has a legal interest in the site (e.g. a long lease already in place and seeking to acquire the freehold) or someone who has land holdings adjacent and requires our site for wider site assembly and development. In this scenario we would follow the same consultation as the first but would look to verify best value typically through a third party valuation.
What discussions has the council had with NUFC or its representatives about their potential use of Leazes Park and any other public land in Newcastle.
Response from Coun Greenhough (September 9, 2025)
“As I said in the response to the petition, Newcastle United is a key stakeholder in the city, obviously as a key stakeholder, officers and the Club are in frequently dialogue on a range of issues on a regular basis.
However, we have received no planning application from the club to develop land at Leazes Park or anywhere else in the city for a new stadium or a redevelopment of St James’ Park.
As with any application, if a planning application is submitted to the Local Planning Authority we will assess this through the statutory process. All applicants are encouraged to undertake public engagement prior to submitting a planning application and the LPA will consult in accordance with our policies and legislation.
A key consideration of any planning application is to consider the environmental impacts of their proposal. Newcastle United would be treated no differently to anyone else in this respect.
Whenever a potential applicant wishes to discuss to ideas and proposals, we would encourage them to engage with us as the Local Planning Authority, and we will happily advise about the planning processes that are in place to protect our communities, our wildlife and our environment.”
I asked a question at Council in November 2025 in a further attempt to get answers, without success. You can read about it here
Freedom of Information Requests
Coun Greenhough’s response did not answer my question, which was about ownership, so I decided to send in a Freedom of Information request.
The response I received was:
We estimate it would take 1056 hours to identify, extract and then provide the information that you have requested. This is a result of an email search made by the Council’s ICT department based on the criteria you have provided which found 31,680 emails that could potentially be in the scope of your request. Each email would take a minimum of 2 minutes to determine whether or not it is actually in scope of the request, then to retrieve and extract the information where required.
Therefore, we will not continue with this request in compliance with Section 12(1). (This allows organisations to refuse requests that would cost them more than £450 to reply to.)
This was for emails with the Search Terms/Key Words
“Newcastle United Football Club” AND “Leazes Park” AND EITHER “Legal Agreement” OR “Leasehold” OR “Sale”
Dates
Between 01/01/18 and 20/09/25.
I refined my Freedom of Information request to reduce the timescale to January 2024 – December 2025 and to include specific contacts from NUFC (which the FOI team had suggested in their original response): Darren Eales, David Hopkinson and Brad Miller.
My request was refused, again, on the grounds of the time it would take:
We estimate it would take 695 hours to identify, extract and then provide the information that you have requested. This is a result of an email search made by the Council’s ICT department based on the criteria you have provided which found 20,849 emails that could potentially be in the scope of your request. Each email would take a minimum of 2 minutes to determine whether or not it is actually in scope of the request, then to retrieve and extract the information where required.
Over 20000 emails between senior council and NUFC figures in two years? How did they find time to do anything else?
Questions to political leaders
The Leaders of the Green, Labour and Liberal Democrat Groups were asked at the election hustings organised by The Chronicle about the possible plans for Leazes Park.
Coun Kilgour from Labour repeated their favourite phrase about there being no planning application as yet, despite it being repeatedly pointed out to them by me and others that, since Newcastle City Council owns the land. there would have to be a discussion about leasing or selling it first. Labour is now down to two seats on the council, however, so there views are no longer relevant, although any secret deal they may have made with the club would be.
Nick Hartley Leader of the Greens wanted to ‘listen to the supporters and make sure we are also protecting our green spaces”. Colin Ferguson Leader of the Liberal Democrats wanted a “net gain in the green space” and was interested in the potential for economix development. Reform UK’s Steven Rutherford said he wanted to see a bigger stadium, but that any plans would have to be subject to consultation.
I contacted Nick Hartley and Colin Ferguson asking them to commit to a full public consultation on any plans and to ensure that any potential economic benefits are properly evidenced. Super stadiums are designed to maximise the income to the clubs that own them not to benefit the local community.
Coun Ferguson has not bothered to respond.
Coun Hartley told me that: “The challenge with the issue you are raising is that I have no information other than the information that was shared that no planning application has been received. I, and we as the Green Party, do have a genuine commitment to local democracy and the rights of residents to have a say in the decisions that affect them, and I know that we will do this as and when we can.”
