Gosforth - Business

Business

Many businesses have offices in the Regent Centre complex, near the High Street, as well as other business parks including Gosforth Industrial Estate, located near the Metro train sheds, and Gosforth Business Park, located between Gosforth Park and nearby Longbenton.

Gosforth houses Northern Rock House, the headquarters of the savings and mortgages business of Virgin Money, formerly the Northern Rock bank, which are next to the Regent Centre development on Regent Farm Road. In September 2008 Northern Rock was nationalised due to the problems it has experienced during the credit crunch and later in January 2012 it was bought by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Money. Virgin has promised that no compulsory redundancies are to be made to any current Northern Rock employees and has vowed to keep the headquarters to the new savings and mortgages business in the former Northern Rock buildings.

Northern Rock had a landmark tower building, built in the 1960s, which in the 2000s was replaced with a 10 storey office building; Partnership House, as it is now known since being sold by the bank, houses the Real Partnership, a coalition between Newcastle City Council and Carillion (formerly Eaga). Other resident companies of Regent Centre include the National Health Service (NHS) and the Department for Transport among others.

Greggs, the largest national retail bakery, originally started with John Gregg's single shop on Gosforth High Street in 1951; initially Greggs was known as Greggs of Gosforth. In 1968 Greggs opened their first large-scale bakery on the Gosforth Industrial Estate, but in 2011 moved to a £16.5 million site in Gosforth Business Park on Gosforth Park Way. In 2012 the Greggs on the High Street was given a concept makeover depicting their 'Greggs the Bakery' format.

Procter & Gamble PLC formerly had their UK head office in Newcastle, at Hedley House, Gosforth, that was developed in the 1950s. The principal building in this complex, Hedley House itself (c.1953) was designed by Sidney Burn, staff architect to Thos. Hedley & Co., soap manufacturers, in association with consultant architect Anthony Chitty. In 1963/4 an addition to the site included a computer block by Sir Basil Spence (1963/4). The landscape setting was designed by B. Hackett. The 1994 extension to the site (now demolished) won the 1994 New Building Category in the Lord Mayor’s Design Awards. Procter & Gamble left the site in 2001 to move to Cobalt Business park, near the Eastern City Boundary with North Tyneside, and the Gosforth land is now used for residential properties.

The Sage Group have their headquarters in North Park which is just north of Gosforth and in the Great North Park developments; another office building occupied by the NHS is also located near the Great North Park. In 2004 Sage moved its headquarters to this location from a site in Benton.