Big, bold and needed
The reopening of the Leamside Line is the kind of big, ambitious project that is gathering support at a national level, it was confirmed this week.
Bringing the disused rail line back into use could breathe new life into communities across Gateshead, Wearside and Durham, would allow the Metro to be extended to Washington, create a Tyne-Tees passenger rail service across Durham, and act as a catalyst for new homes and jobs that could help transform the region’s economy.
The project, and the cost in particular, was questioned at a North East Combined Authority (NECA) scrutiny hearing on Tuesday.
NECA director of finance and investment Mags Scott responded: “This absolutely has to be seen as a national project, not a regional thing.
“I know that is a difficult case to make and a difficult balance to strike. But I think there is an increasing belief from the likes of the National Wealth Fund that this is the type of regional programme that needs to happen if there is going to be a step change in growth. There does have to be big, ambitious projects.”
A year ago, The QT described the Leamside Line as the most important 21 miles in the region and pointed out its strategic importance to the country, allowing more passenger journeys on the East Coast Main Line between Aberdeen and London.
North East mayor Kim McGuinness committed £8 million last year to develop a detailed business case for taking the Metro to Washington, something NECA assistant director of transport strategy Philip Meikle said was a key change.
‘No shock’ headline
In a decision which will have surprised no one, members of Northumberland’s strategic planning committee unanimously voted in favour of approving the detailed application to build a giant data centre campus at Cambois.
The building of the centre, which was originally going to be the home of the doomed Britishvolt battery plant, will create 1,200 construction jobs and hundreds more when operational.
QTS, a Blackstone-owned digital infrastructure company, has committed to a skills programme and the creation of a £110m fund for the council to drive long-term growth.
QTS chief growth officer Tag Greason said: “This will be a significant investment of up to £10 billion. This is not our first project – we know how to partner with communities and we want this partnership to be deep and enduring.”
Not so green and pleasant land
BP has dropped plans to deliver its HyGreen green hydrogen production facility at Teesworks which could have created around 500 jobs. The announcement came days after BP told shareholders it was cutting investment in renewable energy and increasing oil and gas production,
The company told The Teesside Lead, that it remains committed to its NZT gas-fired power plant, the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) carbon capture scheme, and the H2Teesside blue hydrogen project.
At the double Pt 1
“This region is full of talented people.” The words of New Writing North chief executive Claire Malcolm after Gateshead’s Peter Straughan completed a hat-trick of big awards successes by winning an Oscar this week.
Peter, who began his career at Live Theatre in Newcastle and was helped by New Writing North, won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Conclave, an adaptation of Robert Harris’s papal thriller.
Claire said: "The idea that you can go from growing up in Gateshead, learning to write in Newcastle and ending up winning an Oscar and a BAFTA and a Golden Globe is just fantastic."
The North East can lay claim to an Oscars double. Lol Crawley, who won the Oscar for Best Cinematography for his work on the historical drama film The Brutalist, studied at Northumbria University where he earned a BA Hons in Film and Television Production.
Ahead of the ceremony, Lol spoke to the university and said: “The experience and confidence I gained during my time at Northumbria, as well as the connections within the industry, really helped me when I graduated and began carving out a career for myself.”
At the double Pt 2
As if to echo the words of Claire Malcolm, there was more success for North East artists at the BRIT Awards where North Shields’ Sam Fender won Best Rock/Alternative Act and the former Little Mix star Jade, from over the water, was named Best Pop Act.
Sam’s win came just 24 hours after his third album People Watching made it to No.1 and became the fastest-selling vinyl album this century. Sam chose the striking black and white photography of the late Tish Murtha, who captured the reality of working class life in the North East of the 1980s, to feature across all album formats and merchandise.
A quick word
Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service has donated two fire engines built in the 1930s to Beamish Museum. A third station on the recently-opened Northumberland Line will be open to rail passengers from Monday March 17. Tickets for journeys to and from Newsham will go on sale this Monday. Newcastle City Council has officially taken back control of the city’s parks and allotments from the charity Urban Green Newcastle. Colmans, the renowned fish and chip institution from South Shields, is venturing north of the Tyne for the first time and opening a restaurant inside Fenwick in Newcastle. It will open on Thursday March 20. A majority vote by Durham planning committee has rejected a revised proposal to build a large solar farm at Burnhope. The Government has intervened and ordered South Tyneside Council to submit its draft Local Plan for public consultation - despite councillors twice voting to reject it. Work is under way to create a mine water heating system which will eventually be used to supply hundreds of homes at Seaham in County Durham. Staff at Newcastle University have completed two of their 14 days of strike action over planned cuts. Three more strike days will begin on Monday.
New - but not so new
The Government has confirmed regeneration funding for seven North East towns - Blyth, Darlington, Eston, Hartlepool, Jarrow, Spennymoor and Washington. They will each benefit from up to £20 million and the funding can be used for various local services, including high streets, parks, youth clubs, cultural venues, libraries, and health and wellbeing services.
The money was initially announced by the previous Conservative government and has just been confirmed as part of the current government's ongoing spending review.
Charity makes progress
The Wildlife Trust has now raised £6m of the £30m needed to buy and preserve the Rothbury Estate in Northumberland. The estate is owned by the Duke of Northumberland's youngest son, Lord Max Percy, and has been in the family for about 700 years. The land includes 12 farms, more than 1,800 acres of woodland, 23 homes, a pub and a caravan park.
Off-the-field progress
Newcastle United's latest results show a significant improvement in the club's financial performance. Revenue up 28% to £320 million - commercial revenue up 90% to £83.5 million and matchday revenue up 32% to £50 million - while post-tax losses were down to £11 million from the previous year’s near £72 million.
The results are for the year ended June 30, 2024 and include an uplift from playing in the UEFA Champions League, a benefit the next set of results won’t have. The increase in commercial revenue is particularly impressive but, to give some context, the £83.5 million figure is more than £200 million short of what Liverpool recently announced that their commercial activity was worth.
Simple but striking
“Like the best works of public art, it was simple in conception (probably extremely hard in the making) and striking in its impact. A never-to-be-forgotten piece of artistic ephemera.”
The words of the wonderful David Whetstone who was fortunate enough to witness last weekend’s Berwick Parade, artist Matthew Rosier’s projection onto the inner walls of the fortified town’s 8th century barracks featuring more than 800 of the town’s residents.
You can read his review for Cultured. North East here which includes the news that the Living Barracks project, aimed at turning one of the town’s historic landmarks into a cultural hub and visitor destination, has been awarded £4.5 million by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
What am I bid…
Otterburn Hall, a 25-bedroom grade II listed country housel, has been put up for sale by auction with a guide price of just £220,000. It needs a bit of work.
The former hotel is set in 16 acres of grounds with its own woodland and lawned gardens, as well as a private lake and river with fishing rights.
Chief exec to depart
The Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) has confirmed that chief executive Julie Gilhespie is leaving her role as part of an organisational restructure. Her position is being made redundant and the leadership will be split between two new roles.
The Teesside Lead has more on this which includes information you won’t have seen on the TVCA press release.
Business bites
Newcastle-based marine insurer NorthStandard increased annual income by 4% to £690.5m, despite uncertainty in the global shipping sector. Tyneside-based wholesaler Kitwave has announced a 10% increase in revenues in what they describe as a ‘year of investment and growth’. Newcastle firm Opencast, which provides digital transformation for government departments and other organisations, has been ranked 365th on the FT1000 list, which brings together fast-growing companies from around Europe.
THE WIDER VIEW
Now I’m complaining
Handling complaints is part of the job for an editor. I didn’t have to deal with that many, thankfully.
Court cases were a source of a few of them. There was a teacher from a Northumberland village who had been a bit naughty and our report drew a complaint from a woman who said she knew his mum and the poor woman didn’t deserve to see her son’s name in the paper.
The ‘justice being seen to be done’ argument didn’t cut it with her.
When I looked at many complaints, however, the issue was often not with what the reporter had written - but with what the headline said.
To be fair, it can be difficult to come up with a headline that is accurate and balanced, that captures attention and encourages people to read - all within a word count that is often ridiculously small.
I am now a ‘consumer’ of hundreds of headlines every week and am somewhat anaesthetised to the clickbait headlines that the rest of you must find so irritating. But there was something about this one that got to me.
The company had just announced a strong set of annual results, they have a very commendable profit-share scheme for staff, and they have done a good job of keeping prices down during a prolonged period of significant food inflation.
Mix that lot together and you should not come up with a headline that gives people the impression that they’re paying more for their sausage rolls in order to give staff a bonus.
No more Corbys
Corby’s toxic waste story has been dubbed the “British Erin Brockovich” yet it remains relatively unknown despite being a landmark legal case - it was the first time a link between airborne pollution and limb differences in children was officially established.
Hands up, I did not know about this until now.
Toxic Town is a new Netflix drama and this article in The Conversation offers a stark warning on the dangers of weakening our environmental protections.
“With the UK no longer following EU environmental standards and the US rolling back key pollution regulations and scaling down environmental enforcement, the issues at the heart of Toxic Town feel more urgent than ever.”
A (too?) simple idea
No apologies for returning the letters pages of The Times for this contribution from Dr Ray Pine:
“The Times’s report has again made me wonder if alternative locations for solar farms have been properly considered. I recently flew from Stansted and for the first time parked there: I was shocked by the immense acreage used for parking. Why are such areas not used for solar panels?
“In France it is not uncommon to see supermarket car parks covered in solar panels. These not only provide power but shelter cars from the weather. Perhaps this idea is too simple for developers and politicians.”
Et tu, JD?
Understanding Donald Trump's outlook on life may be the key to predicting the evolution of his administration, argues Paul Rogers in the non-profit openDemocracy.
The article points out that he is surrounded by plenty of determined advisers who have been waiting years for his second presidency, and it looks at what might limit him as he works to remake the US.
It also offers an interesting take on last week’s notorious 45-minute televised press conference from the White House.
Rogers writes: “The conference was largely good-natured for the first 35 minutes. It is only at the end that JD Vance moves in aggressively on Zelensky in a manner seemingly designed to get Trump to lose his cool.
“Perhaps it is Trump, not Zelensky, who should be worried when reflecting on the experience – and who should watch his back. It may have been on the last day of February but Vance’s behaviour was not too far from the Ides of March.”
THE QT VAULTS
The miners’ strike ended 40 years ago this week. It seems rather fitting, therefore, to bring you this wonderful recollection from former BBC chief reporter Chris Stewart about his Durham Miners’ Gala day memories and the mystery of how his dad ended up in the balcony alongside Harold Wilson and Tony Benn.
It may be no surprise that Northumberland Council supported the application for a data centre to be built at Cambois, but has anyone asked yet from where it will get the huge amount of energy it requires. Will the centre need its own secure energy source, and will that security be one of the small nuclear power stations that this Government is taking an increasing interest in developing?