I start today with a story that will surely develop as the days go on - the decision by a Chinese company to close a historic private school in Durham.
Bosses deny being asset-strippers but this is the third school they have closed and all are in desirable locations with large campuses.
Important business was discussed at the Tees Valley Combined Authority but the lack of scrutiny did not impress senior journalist Peter Morris. “At TVCA, failure is a collective achievement,” he commented.
Sunderland’s own George Clarke likes the sound of Andy Burnham’s plan to build loads more council houses - and wants to help. And Sunderland MP Bridget Phillipson says white working-class children must possess exceptional talent or be lucky to achieve success in Britain today. Good job she’s Education Secretary then.
Also this week: Remembering Neville Trotter, Bowie at Bowes, senior Greggs exec to retire after 28 years, 30 students secure airport jobs and Sir Ian McKellen’s love letter to England.
Brian Aitken
Editor
School lessons
The historic Durham High School announced on Wednesday it will shut its doors at the end of term after 142 years - but ‘Chinese whispers’ about the closure of the prestigious private school are getting louder.
Former business journalist Mike Parker, the school’s director of marketing, wrote on LinkedIn: “Whatever you read, this isn’t a VAT story. It isn’t a ‘falling rolls, unstoppable decline’ story. The truth is deeper and more complex and, eventually, the truth will out.”
The truth may be coming out already.
Durham High School was taken over by Chinese company Global Galaxy Education (GGE) less than two years ago. The company also announced on Wednesday that the even more historic Ruthin, a boarding school in Denbighshire which was founded in 1284, would close with immediate effect.
This comes just a few months after GGE was accused of asset-stripping by parents when it announced the closure of Malvern St James in Worcestershire just a year after taking over the school.
All three schools are in desirable areas with spacious campuses, reports The Times.
City of Durham MP Mary Kelly Foy was critical of the Chinese owners. “If what I have been told is correct, GGE and other overseas companies may plan to hoover up further independent schools around the country,” she told the Northern Echo. “My words to the governors of any schools would be this - proceed with caution and do not let what has happened in Durham be repeated elsewhere.
“I remain in full contact with the senior leadership team at the school, and a number of families who have reached out in the last few days. I can assure them that I plan to pursue this matter so those responsible for their abject failure to over 280 children and more than 100 staff in Durham face the consequences of their actions.”
‘Failure a collective achievement’
Tees Valley Combined Authority held its AGM last week at the end of a turbulent year, during which it has been under a best value notice imposed by the government and lost its top legal and financial officials - not long after also losing its chief executive.
Peter Morris was there to report for North East Bylines - all two minutes and 23 seconds of it.
“Immediately after the AGM its cabinet held an ordinary meeting,” he reported. “These were ideal opportunities for the five cabinet members to question the mayor, Lord Ben Houchen, and senior officials about the events of the past year and prospects for the 12 months to come.
“Weighty matters like the budget and treasury management, the best value notice and the local growth plan, resulted not surprisingly in an agenda of 15 items and 366 pages. But the cabinet got through the lot in 26 mins 44secs.”
The lack of scrutiny drew critical comment from Peter. “TVCA may fairly be judged an organisational failure,” he said. “The chummy atmosphere and lack of challenge of major reports, some dealing in hundreds of millions of pounds, is evidence that this failure is not just one man’s, the mayor’s. At TVCA, failure is a collective achievement.”
Building support
Let’s hope Prime Minister-elect Andy Burnham is not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Monday saw the new Makerfield MP make his first major policy speech since announcing his intention to take the keys to No.10 - even though he may not actually want to live there.
One of his main pledges was to embark on the biggest council house building programme since the postwar period. That proved something of a vote winner with Sunderland architect and TV presenter George Clarke.
Would be rude to refuse, surely?
Urgent action needed
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said white working-class children must possess either exceptional talent or luck to achieve success in Britain today.
Her comments follow an independent inquiry that concluded “once-in-a-generation reforms” are urgently required to address the persistently low attainment among white working-class pupils.
Schools North East contributed to the inquiry and director Chris Zarraga said: “The lazy explanation is that communities lack aspiration. The real issue is that too many children grow up on the wrong side of a structural divide in opportunity.”
RIP Sir Neville
There’s a certain irony that former Conservative MP Neville Trotter has passed away at a time when the government has been wrestling with the size of its defence budget - he had warned in 2011 that the coalition government’s deep defence cuts would diminish Britain’s role on the world stage.
I had a soft spot for Sir Neville, who has died aged 94. He was Tynemouth MP from 1974 to 1997 so was no longer in Parliament when I became Editor of The Journal in December 2003.
Yet once a year I would receive an hand-written letter from him inviting me to his home where wife Tiggy had prepared a wonderful selection of sandwiches. There I would receive his thoughts on the world and on the shipping, transport and defence sectors in particular.
There’s a lovely obituary from the Telegraph here.
Dual challenge
The leader of the Labour group on Northumberland County Council, Scott Dickinson, believes there will be a better chance of getting the A1 dualled if there was an Andy Burnham-led government.
Hold that thought.
Sir Neville Trotter also delighted in telling me the story of how he persuaded then Transport Secretary Cecil Parkinson and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to dual the AI in Northumberland.
Within a few months, however, neither Parkinson nor Thatcher were still in office. Geoffrey Howe - Thatcher’s longest‑serving ally - resigned and delivered a devastating Commons speech accusing her of undermining Cabinet colleagues and mishandling Europe. The turmoil in the Tory party resulted in John Major taking over as Prime Minister (without a General Election).
Wouldn’t it be something if the dualling of the A1 was stopped because of in-fighting among the Tories in 1990 and some 36 years later it could happen because of in-fighting in Labour that results in a new Prime Minister. I think Neville would look down on that with a smile on his face.
A quick word
The future of Newcastle City Baths has been secured after Greenwich Leisure, which manages more than 400 public facilities around the country, agreed a deal with the city council to take on the historic Turkish baths. The £28m redevelopment of The Maltings in Berwick is to get under way in the autumn after years of planning and consultation. Work is expected to be finished in 2028. One of the 49 saplings grown from the felled Sycamore Gap tree has been stolen from the grounds of Wray Castle, near Ambleside in Cumbria. It’s a year late but the finishing touches are being applied to Northumberland Street in Newcastle, completing a transformation that began in December 2023. Unions have ended industrial action at Haydon Bridge High School after a new leadership team was brought in to prepare the school for conversion to an academy. A partnership between Newcastle College and Newcastle Business Improvement District NE1, has seen 12 student chefs gain hands-on experience in some of the city’s leading restaurant kitchens. The initiative is part of the NE1 CAN programme. Paralympic legend Tanni Grey-Thompson has welcomed a £14.5m upgrade of her local train station at Eaglescliffe which she says has made access “light years better”. The upgrade is part of a wider programme to modernise all 26 stations across Tees Valley, following significant investment at Darlington, Billingham, Middlesbrough and Hartlepool. Rural leisure destination Whitehouse Farm near Morpeth has been served with a second enforcement notice for a planning breach and has been ordered to take down a covered walkway which was constructed during the pandemic without permission.
Bowie at Bowes
How to follow a Vivienne Westwood exhibition, asks David Whetstone in Cultured. North East? “The Bowes Museum has surely found the answer with an exhibition of more than 100 items from the David Bowie archive at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.”
The County Durham venue is included on the tour itinerary for David Bowie: On Tour, hosting what it has dubbed Bowie at The Bowes from October 2027 until January 2028.
The tour, featuring items never previously displayed in public, will open at V&A Dundee in November this year and then proceed to Blackpool before arriving at the Bowes Museum next year.
Vicky Sturrs, director of programmes and collections said: “Being selected as one of only a handful of venues to present this exhibition is a significant achievement and a real vote of confidence in The Bowes Museum.”
Business bites
Greggs CFO Richard Hutton plans to retire and step down from the board at the end of the year after 28 years with the company. Former Bakkavor Group executive Ben Waldron will join Greggs as CFO designate on October 27 and take over from Richard on January 1. The North East Chamber of Commerce is inviting businesses to join a trade mission to Singapore in November which will be delivered in partnership with the British Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. An “exceptionally rare” development space on Newcastle’s quayside has been brought to market by Knight Frank, offering the opportunity to “deliver a landmark scheme in a sought-after location”. Last month’s Sunderland Food and Drink Festival attracted 70,000 people - 20,000 more than last year - and made an economic impact of £2.8m. The three-day event brought live entertainment, markets and international cuisine to the centre of the city. Paul Davison has been elected location head for DAC Beachcroft’s Newcastle office, taking over from Nicola Fairbairn for a three-year term. Acornfield Properties, part of The Prime Group, has secured a seven-figure investment package to fund the construction of a 80,000 sq ft commercial development in Newton Aycliffe. Thirty Newcastle College students have secured jobs at Newcastle Airport after completing a programme, delivered jointly by the airport and the college’s Aviation Academy. Tyre Spot Autocentres, which has 11 retail sites in the North East and a distribution hub in County Durham, has been taken over by national tyre distributor Micheldever Tyre Services. The sites will be rebranded as Protyre Autocare. Halifax has been a high street brand for 173 years but it will disappear completely over the next few months with the branches converting to Lloyds. Northumberland County Council has launched a collaborative network in Berwick to boost jobs, skills and wellbeing for residents and businesses.
1975 ad break
Pretty sure I’ve already shown you this Parker pens ad from 1975 but I wanted to mark the passing of Penelope Keith this week by showing you one of her ads - and this is so much better than the one she did for Heinz soup or the car ad she did with Tom Conti and Sir Humphrey from Yes Minister. Enjoy a fantastic actress showing young ladies how to spend daddy’s money.
THE WIDER VIEW
Treasury island
If Andy Burnham wants to turbocharge his ambitions by having a “devolution blitz”, he must do more than choose the right chancellor - he has to bring the Treasury with him.
Burnham’s unique mix of experience in cabinet, shadow cabinet and as mayor may well enable him to achieve this, say Professor Dave Richards of Manchester University and politics lecturer Sam Warner of Bristol University. “But the fundamental issue of the need for the Treasury to loosen its grip is a central, yet overlooked, challenge,” they write in an article for The Conversation.
The pair are two of the four authors of a new book, The Myth of Treasury Control - 150 interviews (including Burnham), 384 pages, 125 quid so it should be good.
“As we show in our new book, the Treasury’s guiding principles have barely shifted, despite a decade of English devolution,” they say. “It still treats greater fiscal autonomy as something to be earned, not a governing principle. This sits uneasily alongside Burnham’s ambitions, which place local flexibility at the heart of economic and social reform.”
Nicholas
‘Who are ya?’
A short video featuring Sir Ian McKellen narrating A Love Letter to England has been released as the country continues to cheer on the nation’s footballers in their bid for World Cup glory.
The poem was written by James Graham, playwright of Dear England, and produced for the civic initiative The National Conversation in which members of the public are encouraged to submit a 60-second voice note sharing their views and visions on what unites the country.
The words are shaped by early responses to the campaign and are intended to keep the shared spirit alive after the World Cup ends. You can click here to make a contribution. Submissions can be made until the end of August.
Speaking about offering these words of support to the England team and its supporters, Graham said: “Gareth Southgate started his preparation for the World Cup by asking the team, what is England? We can’t expect our footballers to play with pride unless we are all clear about what it means to them, to us, about what unites and defines us.
“This short film is my attempt to contribute to that vision of what connects us. But it’s not just mine, it’s inspired by The National Conversation.”