Through the case of a flagship place quality development; Seven Stories in Newcastle’s Ouseburn Valley, the only physical centre for children’s literature in the UK and one of only a handful of such cultural spaces worldwide, this paper reports on its wider regenerative capacity. The Seven Stories redevelopment is a juxtaposition of careful refurbishment and novel contemporary design that has generated a ‘glocal designscape’ with the intention of creating a ‘tourist space’ to anchor the economic regeneration of East Newcastle. The case is made that isolated place quality enhancements are insufficient to regenerate wider areas and may result in diminishing returns as the initial ‘wow’ factor dissipates, but nevertheless they can constitute vital pieces of a more holistic regeneration jigsaw. Pugalis, L. (2008) 'Regeneration through place quality: the case of Seven Stories - The Centre for Children's Books', Urban Research & Practice, 1 (3), pp. 324-328.

1. Regeneration through place quality: the case of Seven Stories – The
Centre for Children’s Books
Paper should be cited as:
Pugalis, L. (2008) 'Regeneration through place quality: the case of Seven Stories -
The Centre for Children's Books', Urban Research & Practice, 1 (3), pp. 324-328.
Abstract
Through the case of a flagship place quality development; Seven Stories in
Newcastle’s Ouseburn Valley, the only physical centre for children’s literature in
the UK and one of only a handful of such cultural spaces worldwide, this paper
reports on its wider regenerative capacity. The Seven Stories redevelopment is a
juxtaposition of careful refurbishment and novel contemporary design that has
generated a ‘glocal designscape’ with the intention of creating a ‘tourist space’ to
anchor the economic regeneration of East Newcastle. The case is made that
isolated place quality enhancements are insufficient to regenerate wider areas
and may result in diminishing returns as the initial ‘wow’ factor dissipates, but
nevertheless they can constitute vital pieces of a more holistic regeneration
jigsaw.
Introduction
Seven Stories, the home of the Centre for Children‟s Books (CCB), is an important
component of the culture-led renaissance of the Ouseburn Valley in East Newcastle.
Completed in August 2005, the refurbished listed building is a project of local,
regional and national significance, as the only centre for children‟s books in the UK.
A registered charity, CCB is dedicated to the celebration of the cultural importance
and history of children‟s literature, with an emphasis on twentieth century and
contemporary material. Seven Stories is the only place in the country which is
actively collecting original archive material by British writers and illustrators for

2. children. The central argument of the paper is that quality of place amenities can
constitute vital pieces of a more holistic regeneration jigsaw, but will struggle to
positively influence local, city and sub-regional economies by themselves. To help
support this argument, I provide an overview of the regeneration of Ouseburn Valley
and the objectives of the Seven Stories development scheme as a background to
facilitate an examination of the cultural and economic impact on Ouseburn‟s quality
of place „offer‟.
Seven Stories and the regeneration of Ouseburn Valley: an overview
Situated in a conservation area in East Newcastle, Seven Stories is the flagship place
quality development scheme in the Ouseburn Valley; an area that has been the focus
of culture-led regeneration efforts over the past twenty years and has been the
recipient of over £60m of investment since 2002. The Ouseburn Valley covers an area
of approximately 100 hectares and has developed incrementally since the seventeenth
century which is evident in the variation in building footprints (see figure 1). Together
with the topography that provides a sense of enclosure and the watercourse that
snakes through it, the variety of activities and mixed land uses helps define the
Ouseburn Valley as „a unique yet largely untapped resource for the City … [which
presents] one of the few opportunities in the City for satisfying demand for housing
and business development opportunities in the form of a sustainable “urban village”‟
(Newcastle City Council, 2003: 3). Common with other brownfield regeneration
strategies, land parcels are highly fragmented with ownership divided between public
bodies, private interests and charities such as the Ouseburn Trust. For a fuller account
of the regeneration trajectory and detailed analysis of the governance arrangements in
Ouseburn see the works of Gonzalez and colleagues (2005; 2008).
CCB opted to locate in the Ouseburn Valley as it met the requirements in their
business plan to provide a cultural focal point and the anchor for wider regeneration.
The site, including a seven storey Grade II listed building and single storey warehouse
at 30-34 Lime Street, was purchased by CCB in 2002. At this time the building was in
a poor state of repair, requiring significant renovation works to transform it into a
cultural space for children‟s books.

3. Figure 1: Aerial view of Ouseburn Valley
Source: Newcastle City Council (2003). Photograph taken from the South, Newcastle city centre is to
the west.
The key objectives of this quality of place redevelopment scheme are to:
o develop a national centre for children‟s literature and new cultural business
o provide a key cultural attraction, drawing visitors to the Ouseburn Valley
o create and safeguard jobs in the city and north east region
o offer lifelong education and training opportunities
The capital costs associated with the development of Seven Stories exceed £6m, with
major funding secured from One NorthEast (£1.4m), Newcastle City Council (£1.375)
and European Union ERDF (£1.237).
Seven Stories: a glocal designscape
Due to planning restrictions associated with 30-34 Lime Street, sensitive redesign was
called for by the appointed architects; GWK. However, these design and planning
parameters have not stifled the innovative redevelopment of the site (see figure 2).
What could be described as a „glocal designscape‟, Seven Stories is a juxtaposition of
careful refurbishment and novel contemporary design. It could be argued that, in this
case, planning controls have provided the steer for the architects‟ to design a scheme

4. that is simultaneously „global‟ and „local‟: taking inspiration from around the globe
and using modern methods of construction but also working with Ouseburn‟s
distinctive local character and cultural heritage. The design also incorporates
landscaping and public art commissions such as The Voyage; a floating sculpture
anchored on the Ouseburn River adjacent to Seven Stories which drew on design
input from local children.
Figure 2: Seven Stories

5. Supporting the visioning work, CCB engaged local communities which helped the
Centre achieve favourable press coverage and represent it in local discourse as an
asset for NewcastleGateshead as part of its attempts to place culture at the heart of its
economy through the 2008 European City of Culture bid which eventually went to
Liverpool. Innovative consultation techniques, such as role-playing activities by the
Centre‟s staff, guided the design and development of Seven Stories which has helped
create a child friendly attraction.
Cultural and economic impact on Ouseburn’s quality of place ‘offer’
Seven Stories provides a material home for children‟s literature and its facilities
include: a museum, two galleries, a book depository, an interactive discovery centre,
arts and education studio, digital facilities, a bookshop and café. A cultural space of
national significance, Seven Stories seeks to contribute to the wider cultural offer of
NewcastleGateshead. The Centre provides residencies to individual artists and small
cultural businesses, and runs outreach and education programmes to encourage wider
community participation from groups that are traditionally excluded from culture-led
regeneration schemes such as families receiving income support. In addition, its
national collection of children‟s literature provides a major research facility based in
Tyne and Wear.
The cultural and economic impacts of Seven Stories are beginning to take effect at a
variety of spatial scales. The local level of impact includes direct employment and
new cultural infrastructure. In hard economic terms the Seven Stories redevelopment
scheme has created 2000 sq. m. of floorspace, generated 10 jobs and safeguarded a
further 10. However, it is perhaps the „softer‟ cultural impacts and wider economic
effects that are contributing to the cultural renaissance of Ouseburn that is of most
interest to current quality of place debates.
From inception and initial scoping exercises the Seven Stories project has been
outward facing; making links with local communities and institutions. For example,
collaboration with Newcastle University has included the establishment of a Chair of
Children‟s Literature. Seven Stories was also actively involved as part of a
coordinated range of investments in NewcastleGateshead in support of the bid to
become the 2008 European City of Culture. Although the bid was eventually

6. unsuccessful, the cultural legacy lives on through the Culture 10 programme of
cultural events and activities1, which provides an opportunity for Seven Stories and
the Ouseburn Valley to help promote the north east‟s distinctive culture.
The Centre is attracting around 80,000 visitors per annum with an entry charge of
£4.50 per child, £5.50 per adult and £16.00 for a family. According to a survey
conducted in February 2007 that collected the views of 271 visitors, 61 per cent of
visits were made from within Tyne and Wear and 8 per cent from outside the region
(Audiences North East, 2007). It is this latter group of visitors that can potentially
have an important impact on the north east economy, especially when one factors in
the additional local expenditure of the estimated 6,400 visitors from outside the
region. However, records from similar surveys conducted the previous year (2006) in
April and July both recorded 23 per cent of visitors from outside the north east. Whilst
it is too soon to suggest that the „wow factor‟ of a new cultural attraction may be
dissipating for visitors with further to travel, not to mention the seasonal bias that has
to be accounted for, this raises an important question about whether the popularity of
place quality cultural amenities leads to diminishing economic returns.
Seven Stories is helping to position the Ouseburn Valley and NewcastleGateshead
more generally as a cultural „destination space‟ for visitors. This obviously has
positive economic spin-offs which have briefly been discussed, but there are also
counter discourses that suggest the substantial public sector finances pumped into this
venture brings little benefits to the local communities residing in Ouseburn and the
working class publics of NewcastleGateshead. The role of CCB should be
commended for its community work such as with local schools and acting as a
cultural hub for the Ouseburn Valley. However, a single cultural attraction and
organisation can only do so much. Not too dissimilar to other culture-led regeneration
strategies where governance takes on an entrepreneurial ethos (Tretter, 2008), key
partners steering the „renaissance‟ of Ouseburn through financial inducements, such
as Newcastle City Council and One NorthEast Regional Development Agency, are
driven by an underlying economic ethos. In this sense, what is occurring in Ouseburn
is the marketisation of culture, where culture is being appropriated as a channel for
1
See: http://www.visitnewcastlegateshead.com/viewpage.php?id=834&s=80

7. economic development. The case is made that the regenerative potential of culture is
being mobilised in a rather blunt (economic) fashion. Alternative place stories and
dissenting voices can now be heard if one chooses to listen that are beginning to
challenge the dominant regeneration discourse. Although diffuse, discontinuous and
contradictory, a recurring quality of these evolving „spaces of resistance‟ is that the
grass-roots „edgy‟ culture of Ouseburn is being sidelined in favour of middle class
conspicuous consumption. A focus on such a „choice clientele‟ in terms of those who
can afford to choose where to live, work, rest and play is perhaps commodifying the
edginess that makes Ouseburn appeal to the diverse lifestyle communities that have
helped make it what it is (or perhaps now once was).
Conclusion
Seven Stories is part of a suite of cultural amenities being promoted by
NewcastleGateshead to raise the (economic) profile of the city-region as it strives to
reposition itself as a „postindustrial city‟ which is attractive to what Richard Florida
(2002) terms the „creative class‟. To date, it has been extremely successful at
identifying and maximising key linkages with institutions and „choice‟ communities
of meaning, but further efforts are needed to embed this cultural landmark with the
grass-roots „edgy‟ culture of Ouseburn.
The glocal designscape of Seven Stories is the visual and symbolic emblem of the
cultural renaissance taking place in the Ouseburn Valley that has contributed to the
emergence of a destination space. Nevertheless, visitor numbers are modest and its
national distinctiveness as the only centre for children‟s books has so far not been a
strong enough magnet to attract visitors from outside the north east and would need to
be part of a much larger suite of quality of place amenities to appeal to a significant
share of international tourists. It is perhaps the „wow factor‟, and more specifically the
ability to retain this sensation, that determines whether place quality development
strategies will anchor the economic revitalisation that entrepreneurial local state
authorities such as Newcastle City Council hope to achieve when financially backing
these types of projects. In the case of Seven Stories, its uniqueness in terms of cultural
offer (as one of only a handful of similar centres worldwide) and place quality offer
(as an innovative glocal designscape) may provide that unique selling point, to adopt

8. common marketing phraseology, that sets it apart from its competitors and helps
sustain the regeneration of East Newcastle.
There appears to be an extremely fine line between „successful‟ place quality
development strategies and those judged to „under-perform‟. There is no guarantee
that public sector capital investments will necessarily improve an area‟s and less still
a region‟s quality of place and cultural offer and in turn improve its economic
performance. As more projects compete for a finite share of visitors and consumers to
bolster local economies, the rate of economic returns appears to be diminishing as
„fewer, bigger, better‟ quality of place amenities (One NorthEast, 2006) are required
to produce ever dwindling economic impacts. The onus is on bodies such as Urban
Regeneration Companies, Regional Development Agencies and Economic
Development Companies to realise that everyplace will not benefit from a modern art
gallery, or music hall … or conference centre. Where the offer is distinctive and
locally rooted then, possibly, there is economic merit in spatially targeting public
resources in place quality amenities. This suggests that investment in cultural
infrastructure driven by purely economic development motives is a risky strategy.
Economic considerations clearly need to be factored into quality of place initiatives,
but the importance of culture in its own right should not be underestimated.

9. References
Audiences North East (2007). Seven Stories Survey February 2007. Newcastle, Seven
Stories.
Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work,
Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York, Basic Books.
Gonzalez, S. and P. Healey (2005). 'A Sociological Institutionalist Approach to the
Study of Innovation in Governance Capacity', Urban Studies, 42(11): 2055-2069.
Gonzlez, S. and G. Vigar (2008). 'Community influence and the contemporary local
state', City, 12(1): 64-78.
Newcastle City Council (2003). Regeneration Strategy for Lower Ouseburn Valley.
Newcastle, Newcastle City Council.
One NorthEast (2006). Leading the way: Regional Economic Strategy. Newcastle,
One NorthEast.
Tretter, E. M. (2008). 'Scales, regimes, and the urban governance of Glasgow',
Journal of Urban Affairs, 30(1): 87-102.