Just whose Tyne is it anyway?

The playing field, on the Scotswood estate in the city's West End, is a focal point for the kids just a stone's throw from the River Tyne - once the key source of employment for the local community.

The shipyards are gone, unemployment levels are high and the West End is probably the country's best known - or most notorious - area of low demand. For the last 15 years there has been a steady flow of people out of the area. Crime levels are high. Although stock has been reduced by 26 per cent over the last 10 years, the void level is still at 19 per cent.

That the West End is in a mess is beyond dispute, but what worries local people is the extent to which they have a say in its future.

The city council is well aware of the need for a strategic look at the city as a whole. So much so that it commissioned Lord Rogers, head of the Urban Task Force, and two teams of consultants to examine the options for the future of the city. Their findings form the background to the council's new strategy, Going for growth.

The strategy, which is still a draft, proposes demolishing tracts of unpopular housing in a bid to reverse the city's declining population.

Under the plans, a total of 6,600 poor quality homes will be knocked down, and replaced with 20,000 new mixed development properties.

Building on successful river front regeneration elsewhere in the city, the plan is to attract mostly young socially mobile people to on a scale achieved in places like Manchester and Leeds.

Prices will range from £70,000 to £120,000 per property in an area where bidding for the current housing stock starts at £1.

As many as 10,000 new homes are planned in the West End. along with a new transport route, and more than 13,330 new job opportunities (Housing Today, 8 June).

Scotswood is one of seven "neighbourhood areas" in the West End identified in the report as showing a continuing decline in population, with schools, shops, health provision and other council services becoming less viable as a result. Four families leave the area each week. "Despite massive - £20m - capital investment in public and private sector stock there is very little demand for any type of housing," the strategy warns. The proposals include "restructuring" 2,100 homes, and to "ensure that the housing needs of the remaining 1600 households are provided for", along with support and advice. Relocation packages for residents of all tenures over a three year period top the list.

But the council will have a long way to go if it is to get residents on board Ñ or even get this message across. Some Scotswood residents fear they will not be able to stay. For long-term resident John, not his real name, the proposal is a disaster.

"I've lived here for 32 years, I've retired and my mortgage is paid for. I won't be able to afford the new houses they intend to build and I don't want to move," he says.

Others fear that the strategy may be a blow that could smash what remains of an already fractured area. It is a concern manifested on the front of "Save our Scotswood" T-shirts worn by residents around the estate. What irks residents most is the lack of control they feel they have over the proposal.

Gwen Hind of the Scotswood Campaign Group says: "This is not about consultation, this is about their plans. We want them to stop the consultation and come together with us to work out a plan to incorporate the community."

The council says it has made no firm decisions yet and the consultation process is ongoing. Cabinet member for economic development and transport Kevan Jones promises to take alternative views on board. He says: "What we have put forward is a set of ideas. I think when you are trying to going to make radical change you are going to get people on the defensive."

He is also dismissive of fears that residents will no longer be able to afford to live there. "I don't accept people will have to leave," he says. "I can guarantee everyone who wants to will be able to move back."

But Going for Growth's masterplan for the city's neighbourhoods is the only option on the table. The council still has a lot of convincing to do.

Local councillor Rob Higgins is one of 15 Labour members who recently abstained rather than vote against an opposition motion critical of Going For Growth.

He agrees: "I don't like the way we are being fed information. We are being told things rather than being able to influence the agenda."

"I don't think the term masterplan has helped either. People have just concluded the decision has already been made."

He admitted he was shocked when he realised the scale of the proposal and had initially wondered how he could present it to his constituents.

"A few weeks ago I was calling the plan 'Going for Broke' because it is such a radical step in the dark. All I and the other abstaining councillors want is a pause so we can consider exactly what the options are," he says.

One of the residents' key concerns is that parts of Scotswood have been designated as brownfield sites, under a section 106 agreement that will offset a major greenfield development on the edge of the city.

The agreement ensures that the release of land within Great Park - a controversial scheme for 2,500 new homes that was only approved after it was seen by secretary of state for the environment John Prescott - is linked to the development of brownfield areas on a ratio of two to one. So for every house built at Great Park, two will be put up in the designated areas in Scotswood and other parts of the West End. The agreement has intensified fears that Going for Growth is a developer-led plan.

"If Going for Growth is about consultation, then then why has the council already negotiated Scotswood as a fillip to the Great Park project?" asks Liberal Democrat Greg Stone. He believes it is no coincidence the consultation process was announced after this year's local elections. Several Labour councillors could lose seats if the plans are carried through, he suggests.

He adds: "The aims of Going for Growth are very good but the implementation has been very poor. There are big flaws in the way the council has handled this."

So far the council's Labour majority has held firm over the issue but there is clearly concern in the rank and file over the effect the proposal will have on the traditional support base. And the party's control could yet be challenged.

Don Price, ward member for Heaton in the city's east end, was another Labour rebel at last month's vote. He is still not prepared to back his party's line. With his fellow abstainers Price was informed, through the local press, that he could be punished by the party for his disobedience

He remains defiant: "This [Going for Growth] plan is very top down," he says.

"It smacks of the worst of the 1970s approach. It's almost like we have learned nothing from the sink estates of the 60s that we created."

"The council is talking about moving a whole community without talking about how to retain community links."

Price accepts places like Scotswood have major problems but questions whether the council has considered what will happen when these communities are transplanted.

"Scotswood has undoubtedly got problems but they are just going to be displaced if these residents are dumped elsewhere," he says.

Consultation on Going For Growth ends on 23 September and the council is keen to stress it is only the first step in a 20-year programme of regeneration.

But in its attempts to bring about radical social change the authority runs the risk of being accused of heavy handedness.

Whether this is merely a little local difficulty, or symptomatic of a wider malaise about how councils handle consultation, it is clear that all eyes are on Newcastle and how it handles the next stage of its high profile regeneration plan.