Council looking for operator to reopen cafes
LDRSNew steps towards reopening two park cafes that were controversially shut down have been taken.
Cafes in Exhibition Park and Paddy Freeman's Park in Newcastle were closed earlier this year, with the council saying the two sites were "haemorrhaging" cash and were unsustainable.
Newcastle City Council later announced that the venues could reopen under new management, despite saying they were costing about £200,000 per year.
Notices posted on the authority's website revealed authorisation had been approved to grant a tenancy at will for both cafes - followed by a 10-year lease.
Full details of the decisions have been kept confidential, and civic centre officials told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that a preferred operator had not yet been chosen.
Staff at the cafes were described as being "shellshocked" by the closures, which sparked backlash and concerns about the loss of community facilities.
Both cafes came under the council's control when it took back 33 parks from charity Urban Green Newcastle (UGN) in March, 2025.
Councillors were told at a meeting in March that expressions of interest to take over the cafes were coming in "daily".
That was despite Christine Herriot, the council's director of city operations, neighbourhoods and regulatory services, saying that they had too little footfall to justify their continued operation.
She said: "The demand just was not there, we are more than able to demonstrate that."
