Slow or no go
Tomorrow will see the start of six weekends of rail disruption on the East Coast Main Line with no trains to or from Darlington or Durham, and longer journeys between Newcastle and Northallerton because of diversions and bus replacements.
The disruption will affect thousands of Newcastle United fans travelling to London for the League Cup final at Wembley on Sunday March 16. Network Rail said it would cost million to change the plans and that it would work with LNER to see "as many services as possible run" that weekend.
The projects being worked on include the £140m regeneration of Darlington station, which will see a new step-free footbridge lifted into place, and the creation of walkways beside the line around Durham station.
History - but not as you know it
The creators of Kynren this week took the wraps off plans for a multi-million pound historical theme park, The Storied Lands, which is set to open in the summer of 2026.
The park will be a daytime attraction within the wider Kynren park in Bishop Auckland. It will transport visitors through history, myth, and legend with live-action performances.
Anna Warnecke, CEO at Kynren, said: "This is a game-changer for us and for the UK visitor experience market. You won’t just witness history – you’ll live it, feel it, and be moved by it."
Knives, wind and culture
The King and Queen visited Middlesbrough yesterday - the town's first visit from a reigning monarch for more than three decades.
Charles and Camilla met a collection of charities and organisations from those supporting young people to a group from the King’s Trust supporting an initiative to tackle violence involving knives.
Charles toured the giant £950m SeAH Wind factory nearing completion at Teesworks, which will be the single largest of its kind in the world when complete.
To coincide with the visit, Teesside University, Middlesbrough Council, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), and the Middlesbrough Cultural Partnership, announced an ambitious plan, Love Boro, to invest in culture and creativity leading up to the town's bicentenary celebrations in 2030.
Playpark problems
Workers constructing a playpark in Wooler have (so far) uncovered 176 unexploded Second World War bombs. The area is thought to have been used as a Home Guard training ground and the munitions were used as part of their training and later buried there.
The bombs still contain a charge, however, and are being treated as potentially hazardous live devices. The cost of removing the bombs is estimated to be between £30,000 and £40,000, and Northumberland County Council has stepped in to fund the work.
Masterplan unveiled
Arlington Real Estate and Homes England have announced a Joint Venture with plans to create up to one million square feet of light industrial and commercial space at West Hartford, on the outskirts of Cramlington.
The masterplan for the site, which will support the North East Combined Authority’s economic development strategy and help attract jobs and investment into the region, was unveiled to North East mayor Kim McGuinness at an event that also saw Port of Blyth CEO Martin Lawlor announced as a non-executive director of the JV.
Conduct question
A physical altercation resembling a wrestling match, a rugby-style tackle, scratches, bruising, broken spectacles, questions asked in a raised voice and threatening manner ... Darlington Borough Council's standards committee will consider whether two councillors breached any code of conduct rules when it meets on Monday.
Spending opportunities
Business growth, infrastructure, skills and education, international trade and green innovation are the main themes of the North East Chamber of Commerce’s response to the Government’s comprehensive spending review consultation.
Chief executive John McCabe highlighted the business rates system as one of the biggest barriers to local economic growth and called for a firm commitment to major transport projects, including the reopening of the Leamside Line, connecting Tyne and Wear and County Durham, investment in the region’s road and rail network, Northern Powerhouse Rail, and the continued development of the North East Green Superport and Teesside Freeport.
He said: “While we recognise the fiscal challenges at play, the opportunity, assets and innovation in our region make it a prime candidate to kickstart economic growth.”
Basic instinct
Academics from Northumbria University are behind a proposal for a Basic Income pilot scheme in Greater Manchester.
The report outlining the pilot was co-authored by Matthew Johnson, Professor of Public Policy at Northumbria University, and Chair of the Common Sense Policy Group, and Dr Elliott Johnson, Vice Chancellor’s Fellow in Public Policy at Northumbria University.
The pilot would run over two years and would see each participant receive £1,600 per month. The authors of the pilot proposal will host a briefing session for MPs at Westminster on February 27.
A quick word
Members of the University and College Union (UCU) have voted to strike over Newcastle University’s efforts to plug a £35m shortfall. It is not yet known when any action will take place. Singer Ella Henderson is to perform in Durham Cathedral. She has been announced as the headline act for Live At The Cathedral 2025 on Friday July 25. Tickets are on sale now. The date for the jury trial of two men accused of chopping down the Sycamore Gap tree has been set for April 28 at Newcastle Crown Court. The Forge restaurant at Middleton Lodge Estate in North Yorkshire has been awarded a Michelin star. Sir David Bell, Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive of Sunderland University, has been appointed as the vice chair of the newly established Skills England.
Long pause
Sunderland Lit & Phil Society has held its first meeting in more that 150 years. The original society closed its doors in 1873 after investing in the Athenaeum on Fawcett Street.
Sunderland Business Improvement District (BID) supported the new society to set up in its original home to "encourage conversation, new ideas and healthy debate." Interesting topic at the next monthly meeting - the future of the city’s publishing industry.
Job doubts
The former Davy Roll factory in Gateshead is facing closure with the loss of 180 jobs. Union Electric Steel, which acquired the company in 1999, said it has been making a loss for three years and had begun a consultation with staff at a very early stage.
The American owners said the plant would continue to operate as normal, had orders to see it through the year and that there would be no closure before December 31.
Top 250
Many of you will remember The Journal’s Top 100, an annual list of high turnover companies in the North East that became a Top 150 until the awards stopped in 2019. A revival is taking place thanks to NET (North East Times) who this week announced that the NET 250 awards will take place on Wednesday May 14.
Newcastle University Business School are partnering NET and have been compiling the top 250 companies from publicly-available data. Their work is being verified by PwC.
AI man!
Local and regional authorities have been encouraged by the Government to submit proposals to become AI Growth Zones.
The particular focus on deindustrialised areas that have existing access to power or are suitable for establishing major energy infrastructure, means that the North East is firmly in the picture, along with Scotland and the North West.
Green energy
The BBC were in Humshaugh, near Hexham, this week where enterprising residents are raising money for a solar farm which will generate about half the energy the village uses.
Nick Hayward, a member of Humshaugh Net Zero, said the fund had so far received £100,000 in pledges. "The profits from selling the electricity will go into a community fund," he said. "We're going to use it to give grants to residents in the parish to adopt low-carbon technologies like solar panels and electric vehicle chargers."
The QT’s Andy Cooper visited Humshaugh in April last year and spoke to villagers about their Net Zero ambitions and how they were ready to help other communities follow their lead. You can read his report from The QT Vaults here.
Time to settle
A former sub-postmaster who became bankrupt after being wrongly convicted because of the Horizon scandal has decided to accept a £600,000 settlement from the Post Office.
Keith Bell, 76, who was a sub-postmaster in Stockton between 1987 and 2002, said: "There's parts of my life I'll never be able to have over, but now I've got a chance to do things I haven't been able to do.
"I decided that at my age I wanted to accept the offer that was given to me. I could have appealed for more, but that would have meant the process going on for years."
Building bonanza
Work to build a new Darlington garden village is expected to start in the coming weeks. A community fund agreement has been signed for Burtree Garden Village in Faverdale, which will create up to 2,000 new homes on old farmland near the A68.
Meanwhile, the Government has received over 100 proposals for new towns across England. The New Towns Taskforce will review these proposals and is expected to approve around a dozen in the summer.
The majority of proposals are from what we call the South but there have been submissions from all regions. The taskforce has said that only a small number of proposals are for standalone settlements with the rest being urban extensions to existing towns or cities.
Business bites
Talks on a merger between car giants Nissan and Honda have formally ended but the companies said they will continue their partnership on the development of batteries, software and EV technology along with Mitsubishi. Fintech start-up Neptune North, which is co-owned by global consultancy Oliver Wyman, is to create 100 jobs after moving into Bank House in Newcastle’s Pilgrim Street in May. Stockton-based Portland Estates Management has taken over commercial property business Dodds Brown, which has been operating from Middlesbrough for 130 years. Car dealership group Vertu Motors, which has nearly 200 sites in the UK, has warned it will reduce its workforce and close most of its showrooms on Sundays. The North East Combined Authority has agreed to write off £3m of a £5m North East Investment Fund loan given to North Tyneside company Tyne Pressure Testing in 2015.
THE WIDER VIEW
In plain sight
“What is happening right now in America, in real time, is a coup. This is an information war and this is what a coup now looks like.”
These words come from someone who has earned the right to be listened to: journalist and writer Carole Cadwalladr, who is best known for her work with The Observer, where she gained international recognition for her role in exposing the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
She recently left the Sunday newspaper after it was taken over by Tortoise Media and she is in no doubt that what is happening in the US should be massive front page headlines.
“Musk didn’t need a tank, guns, soldiers,” she said on her Substack platform this week. “He had a small crack cyber unit that he sent into the Treasury department last weekend. He now has unknown quantities of the entire US nation’s most sensitive data and potential backdoors into the system going forward.
“That unit - whose personnel include a 19-year-old called ‘Big Balls’ - is now raiding and scorching the federal government, department by department, scraping its digital assets, stealing its data, taking control of the code and blowing up its administrative apparatus as it goes.
“This week is when the operating system of the US was wrenched open and is now controlled by a private citizen under the protection of the President.
“If you think I’ve completely lost it, please be advised that I’m far from alone in saying this. Just because these words are not on the front page in banner headlines of any newspaper doesn’t mean this isn’t happening. It is.”
So Sioux me
I see that a book written by former Siouxsie and the Banshees drummer Budgie, The Absence: The Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer, will be published in June.
I doubt that Budgie, real name Peter Edward Clarke, will mention the young reporter from the Evening Express who was is the dressing room at the Capitol Theatre in Aberdeen in 1979 as he and Siouxsie waited in vain for the other two members of the band to show up for their concert.
There had been an argument between the two pairs of band members earlier in the day, but there were hopes that the missing duo would turn up before support act The Cure (yes, The Cure were the support band!) had finished their set.
The manager of the venue didn’t want any fingers pointed in his direction should the show not go on, so he huckled me - for I was that young reporter and I also doubled as the paper’s music columnist - into the changing room to make sure I had the full story.
In the end, Siouxsie and Budgie did a brief impromptu set with Robert Smith and Co, the fans were given a full refund, and I sold the exclusive inside story to one of the music weeklies.
Who still haven’t paid me.
Pride and prejudice
Only 41% of Generation Z adults are proud to be British while 48% of them think Britain is a racist country, according to a poll carried out for The Times this week.
Generation Z? I always have to look this up. You’re in Generation Z if you were born between 1997 and 2012 (inclusive). Millennials, or Generation Y, were born between 1981 and 1996, while those born 1965 to 1980 are part of Generation X (also the name of a punk band, by the way, who may also have played with Siouxsie and the Banshees).
The poll also found that 50% of the 18-27 year olds thought the UK was stuck in the past and just 15% believed the country was united.
The Times last carried out this survey in 2004 when 80% of the young adults said they were proud to be British and 60% thought the country was united.
Tony Blair was in his second term in office in 2004. The war in Iraq had begun the year before, the country was experiencing economic growth, and 10 countries joined the European Union. It’s worth pointing out that the average home then cost 4.5 times the average annual salary. The ratio is now 8 times average income.
Every man
Explicit language, but an important message from Alison Dunn, commentator and CEO of the Society Matters Group, in her blog post The Demise of DEI signals the Demise of Human Decency.
It’s something every man should read as she talks about “the most horrendous abuse on social media” for daring to suggest that inclusivity is an important characteristic in a functioning and caring society.
She says: “We are in a period of societal recalibration, the axis is shifting, and no matter where we find ourselves in this polarised world, we cannot allow threats of sexual violence and intimidation into our discourse. It’s not enough to turn away from it, or to tell women to ‘just stop engaging’.
“My aggressor has now removed his threats of sexual violence from the thread, but I have copies of them, and he knows that now. I hope he’ll think again before he uses this tactic again, but I’m not optimistic.”