Ninety council homes were saved thanks to John Stuart's crusade to stop a tower block being demolished.  For years, Wardroper House has been a familiar skyline marker on the landscape of Dovercourt in Walker.  And when the 14-storey-high tower block was threatened with demolition under the Walker Riverside regeneration plan, John was determined to make residents' voices heard.

John, 70, a veteran Fleet Street journalist who started his career on the Chronicle, said:

“I could not see any sense in demolishing Wardroper and uprooting all those people - causing such traumatic disruption to their lives - just to build 10 new homes for sale on the site.

“In battling to stop it happening, I became just as amazed to find that some people seem not to appreciate the value of council housing and the significant contribution it makes daily to the social and economic wellbeing of Newcastle.

“Council house folks are a major part of the culture of Geordieland with people living in them by preferred choice as well as need,” said John, who is a founder member of Dovercourt Residents Association and its Regeneration  Focus Group, as well as editor and designer of its newsletter Walker Spy.

“YHN does a great job managing 31,000 council houses for the City Council. That adds up to almost one in three of all the homes in the city. Think what that means.

“It means council tenants provide both a settled, readily available resident workforce and help considerably to create and sustain so many jobs for other people.

“Think of the spending power that all those people in council homes contribute every day to help sustain all the shops, companies, social life and transportation services in the city.

“Newcastle would be a poorer, miserable place without council houses and the people who live in them. We need more of them, not less. That is why saving Wardroper was as important for the city as us here in Dovercourt.”