At 54 years old, John Doull is old enough to remember when Maindee, one of Newport 's most diverse areas, was awash with bustling shops, packed pubs through the week, and pretty much everything else. "I used to play pool at the George, and we all used to go down on a Sunday when there were the old Sunday hours for pubs," he said, while enjoying a sunny afternoon along Chepstow Road, Maindee's main thoroughfare.
"So, you'd have until 3pm and then the pub would shut again until about 7.30 or 8 in the evening. So we all used to go from Maindee to Risca in the afternoon, because the pub there was open for an extra hour or so. So, by the time we got back to Maindee after we'd only have to wait a little bit outside for the pub to open again.
"All of a sudden, at half past three, you would see a load of taxis pulling up in Maindee. I'm sure that's why there was still a taxi rank there! Every pub was packed and every shop would be full. The atmosphere was just great." John lives off Caerleon Road and has grown up in the area since 1977. "Maindee used to be a little town within a town," he said. "It was almost like a suburb of Newport."
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On a weekend afternoon the Godfrey Morgan Wetherspoon, the Maindee Hotel and the Scrum Half (the latter of which, like many, has rebranded since times past) - would have a decent crowd of people drinking and laughing. There seems to be a decent mix of new and old along the street - Jim Oliver butchers, Villa Dino Italian restaurant, both of which have been there for decades, as well as newer offerings like Lily's Cheesecakes, which opened in 2020.
But locals say the area has long suffered from a slow decline. John was previously involved in hospitality and remembers businesses closing rapidly through the mid-2000s, with high street changes and technology impacting on shopping tastes, compounded by rising prices, business rates and the coronavirus pandemic.
"All you've got now, apart from the butchers, is takeaways, nail places and kebab houses. Half of the pubs have gone," he said. "There are only a handful left. It was a great place. We had everything you needed here. You had the Cavalier Club and the Carpenter's pubs. Almost all the pubs have changed now. The area itself has been forgotten. It's been on a gradual slide. I would say people don't feel safe here. The police station is hardly open."
Like many areas, Maindee no longer has a bank, with Lloyds on the main street closing back in November. Family-owned menswear shop Cayzers, which served generations of customers in the Newport area, announced its closure last September after 115 years in business and is set to be replaced by a restaurant.
John said the area had attracted drug dealing and anti-social behaviour, which had made it less desirable for visitors. "It's not conducive to people visiting, apart from the locals who support the businesses. With a rundown area you've got things like increased drug prevalence, people bothering you trying to get money. There are people outside the shops half the time screaming and fighting. That never used to go on. It's such a shame, because it used to be brilliant."
Helyn Robertson, 73, used to work in the Maindee Hotel pub back in the 1970s and '80s. She now runs the Royal Oak in Pillgwenlly, and said Maindee had undergone huge changes since she was there.
"Maindee was big at the time. You didn't need to go into town back then. They were great times. It was all family pubs, everybody all mucked in together. There was never any trouble. You had a seamstress, the banks, all the pubs down the side streets, supermarkets, a shoe shop. Now it's like Beirut.
"There were quite a few banks so people used to come for dinner and have a pint, you know. You had your characters but everyone was laughing a laugh. There was a lot of industry in Newport back then, of course, so you used to have a lot of people from the docks. I used to give the dockers the key to the front door. If they were doing 10pm until 6am, 6am would be their dinner time. They'd go in, have a pint and a sandwich and leave some loose change."
Helyn said she felt price rises and the loss of industry had impacted on areas like Maindee and Pill over the years. "There were about 50 pubs in Pill at one time. Now there's two or three."
Mohammed Saifurrahman works in Zak's Pizza in nearby Speke Street. Originally from Afghanistan, he has lived in south Wales for 20 years and said Maindee had its good and bad like any community.
"I like the area but I know there are problems with drugs and homeless people. You can see 16 or 17-year-olds selling drugs on their bikes. Sometimes you see fighting in the streets on a Friday and Saturday night outside the pubs. Sometimes it's really bad and the police are involved. But it's better than it was a few years ago. New businesses, new people coming to Newport. There are a lot of people from Bristol who have come to live here when they stopped having to pay to go over the bridge, you know."
Mohammed said he would like to see more street cleaning as the area often suffered from littering issues, but said there remained a good community spirit.
"The people are really engaged with each other. A lot of people know each other and say hi to each other in the mornings. It's good."
Despite some of the negatives, there are signs of hope. The old toilets at Maindee Triangle between Chepstow Road and Livingston Place have just been restored as a café after years of disuse. The project was spearheaded by charity Maindee Unlimited, which was set up seven years ago to save St Matthew's Church in Church Street.
Although it wasn't successful in saving the church, the charity has made great strides in reviving the Maindee community. As well as its transformation of the toilets, it also took over the running of Maindee Library in 2015 after it became one of several local libraries to be closed. It now hosts a food pantry and other regular events, including a planned jazz event for the upcoming Jubilee.
John Hallam, programme manager at Maindee Unlimited, said Maindee had a number of independent shops and a strong night-time economy but that more needed to be done to make it more attractive for visitors.
Part of the Maindee Unlimited project, Greening Maindee is focused on campaigning for developing more green spaces in the area and improving existing ones, like playgrounds which have fallen into disrepair. The Victoria ward, which includes Maindee, has less than one third of a hectare of open recreational space for a population of 78,824.
"I think the needs of the area are fairly obvious. It's a very densely populated area with the least amount of green space in Newport," John said. "The housing is not good quality. It's dominated by railway lines and busy roads and sadly is an air quality zone meaning it has a lot of pollution. There is also a long-term flood risk.
"Most people who live in the area get by but there are a lot of families living in poverty. We're concerned that those families will struggle in the years to come. One of the primary schools has over 30 languages spoken and a lot of people are from minority backgrounds. That gives a richness that we want to celebrate."
Aidan Taylor chairs Newport Makerspace, a community-run workshop located in the Wastesavers reuse centre in Chepstow Road. Wastesavers took over the shop last year after it had been left empty for a decade, and Newport Makerspace started in November, although it had been meeting up since 2017.
The space offers woodwork and metalwork equipment, 3D printers, laser cutters, sewing machines and much more, as well as offering a space for repairs and reclaimed materials and a weekly social meet-up and maker's night.
"Our core group are people who like to play with electronics, textiles and fabrics, but people come to us who just want a cup of tea," he said. "One of the things that caught me about makerspaces is the community aspect. I think that does have an impact on people's wellbeing. "People could do what they come to us to do at home, but they often prefer to do it with other people. We've had people bringing in reclaimed materials to repair - that's just happened of its own accord without us really pushing it.
"We have a diverse range of people who come in - retired professionals, people who have been in teaching, younger adults and obsessive tinkerers! There is some evidence that shows makerspaces have been used to instigate positive change in areas with deprivation and that was a big draw for me. It's early to see what the effects will be but we see it as a long term project. We're open to everyone, not just makers."
Zahid Norr has been involved in Maindee for 20 years. He's recently bought the old barber shop in Chepstow Road and is planning to turn it into a food business. He thinks there needs to be more effort to preserve the character of the area.
"Maindee has always been a secondary shopping area anyway, but has become more and more food-oriented. With food businesses, it often doesn't look as busy because a lot of people are having food delivered now. There have been businesses making ad-hoc changes to their shop fronts and things like that without permission. It's developers doing the cheapest option. It means you lose that original architecture which really gives it a sense of being rundown.
"Things like street furniture being concreted over and not really invested in makes a difference too. You have a lot of Victorian houses here, but a lot of its character has been ripped out. If the main streets are going to ad hoc development, it does give a sense of deprivation and dilapidation. I would like to see a focus on physical infrastructure. If you look at the market arcade in Newport, it's respected the original architecture. We need to see the historic buildings here invested in. I've retained the shop front in mine.
John Hallam said Maindee also suffered from a lack of social investment, pointing to some of the major housing regeneration schemes in Pillgwenlly, Ringland and Duffryn. He added that he understood people's frustrations with fears over rising costs of living.
"If you haven't got a lot of money in your pocket, it's hard to see things positively. If people can't feed or clothe their kids it's a problem. When people look back fondly at how things used to be, it's usually from the period when they were between 15 and 25 years old. People are talking about the crisis on the high street and think it's only Maindee which has suffered, but it's not. For people who want to see it improve, we are seeing that. A lot of our volunteers get to feel more positive, which is good as people often feel they can't make a difference."
