Work on doomed flyover 'to begin in August'
BBCWork to knock down a flyover will begin in August and be completed by the end of March "at the very latest", a council leader says.
The A167 Gateshead Highway has been shut since December amid concerns about crumbling concrete.
Gateshead Council has agreed to demolish the 900-metre (2,950ft) structure - which carried about 40,000 vehicles a day - to make way for town centre regeneration.
Leader Martin Gannon said the area could be used for homes.
The authority has earmarked £18m for its removal.
Some of the footbridges could be destroyed with explosives, with the rest possibly removed in sections and transported elsewhere to be broken up.
'Massive demand' for homes
Six months on from the closure, Gannon told the BBC's Look North: "People will see work taking place certainly from August onwards and then, at the very latest, the demolition work will be completed by the end of March. [That's] absolutely certain.
"It's a huge area of land that we want to build houses on.
"We want people to live in Gateshead, there's massive demand and it will create jobs and good-quality homes.
"There's nothing you can't like about redevelopment in the centre of Gateshead."
As well as hitting motorists, the flyover's closure saw Metro services running in tunnels beneath the structure suspended for nearly two weeks while urgent repairs were carried out to prop it up.
Operator Nexus has indicated closures on the scale of those seen in December should not be needed.
Infrastructure director Stuart Clarke told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "We will share information with our customers once the details, scope of the works and timings have been finalised.
"Our aim is to ensure that any potential disruption to Metro services will be kept to an absolute minimum."