New home desperately being sought for collection of historic vintage vehicles in the North East

Tyneside Heritage Vehicles owns and accommodates 30 rare buses which date back to the 1970s at their Gateshead site. Credit: Tyneside Heritage Vehicles

A North East group working to preserve heritage vehicles may be forced to ground to a halt as they struggle to relocate to a new premises.

Tyneside Heritage Vehicles owns and accommodates 30 rare buses which date back to the 1970s at their Gateshead site.

But now the lease on the specially modified facility they have worked out of for 14 years is coming to an end, and will not be renewed.

The group say the height of the vehicles has made finding a new warehouse in the local area difficult, and they now face the risk of closing altogether.

The group say they are proud to be preserving 20th century buses and hope they can find a way to continue operating. Credit: Tyneside Heritage Vehicles

Stephen Blair from Tyneside Heritage Vehicles, said: "The building at the moment is sixteen and a half thousand square foot. We had the doors heightened so we could get the double-decker buses in.

"To find a building that could accommodate us in the same way...The group itself is self-financed so there's a cost involved to relocate and the logistics side of it.He continued: "Things would have to start getting scrapped, which we don't want to do.

"The reason we did this in the first place was to stop that, to preserve local buses from the local community from a bygone era.

"We might not be able to do that unfortunately."

BizSpace, which owns the building, have said they are unable to extend the groups lease due to 'strategic plans for the site'. Credit: Tyneside Heritage Group

The group work to restore vintage buses from the region which are then showcased at local events.

Lee McHaddan, Tyneside Heritage Vehicles, said: "When we go out with the buses, everywhere you go there's people coming out of their houses, coming out of shops taking photos, videoing us, people waving at us.

"There's a lot of people saying I used to get that bus to school. Or my dad used to take us to Newcastle football matches and they're the buses we used to get.

"You don't see them anymore. There's the yellow buses and that sort of thing. And that's what we try to do, we try to put a smile on people's faces."

The group was relaunched as in 2014 and has been educating members and the public about vehicle preservation through exhibits and events around the country since.

A spokesperson for BizSpace, the company which owns the building, told ITV Tyne Tees: "We can confirm that we will not be renewing Tyneside Heritage Vehicles’s lease at our Felling Warehouse in Gateshead when the contractual term expires.

"This is to fit with our strategic plans for the site which we are currently assessing."

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