Yet many of the traders along Darby Street are dealing with a dramatic slide in business.

"Trade's been down 30 per cent, that's a further reduction from last year," Rowena Foong, from clothing business High Tea With Mrs Woo, tells the Newcastle Herald's online interview series, The Issue, this week.

Traders say 15 businesses in Darby Street have closed or moved in the past six months.

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In response, a new business group, Makers and Traders of Newcastle City, has been formed to provide a united voice, and to be heard in City Hall.

"We're all feeling that frustration of not being able to have an opinion on how the way the city is being developed," Rowena Foong, one of the group's prime movers, says.

"Our businesses are on the street, across the city... but everything physically is happening, when we haven't been part of the conversation, part of the process."

High Tea With Mrs Woo has been on Darby Street since the early 2000s, and Rowena Foong tells The Issue she is determined that the store stays there.

"We're in it for the long haul," she says.