Middlesbrough photo exhibition shows ‘loss of community’

An exhibition of photographs of a now-demolished urban landscape captures “the loss of community and emptiness”, the artist behind it has said.

Peter Benson spent more than 30 years documenting the clearance of the area between Newport Bridge and the Transporter Bridge in Middlesbrough.

Fifty of his images, some of which date back to the 1960s, feature in an exhibition called Welcome to Teesside which opens on 27 April at the town’s Heritage Gallery.

Benson said: “The empty buildings, houses, garages and warehouses were like a monument to the past, that dispersed local heritage that had been lost as people were moved out.”