We’ve all wanted to turn back time because we said something we wished we hadn’t.
I suspect that’s how gastropub owner Karen Errington feels after branding an MP as tight-fisted for only having a starter and not leaving a tip - then finding herself in the Daily Mail.
There were a few good news announcements from the Government this week. Good as in they were handing out money.
A dozen cultural venues benefitted to the tune of £12m from the Arts Everywhere Fund. There was more money for community diagnostic centres in Teesside and Gateshead, two new Technical Excellence Colleges were announced, and Blyth secured £20m from the Pride in Place scheme.
If only local elections came around more often.
My hero of the week is commentator Jack Walton who kept a crowd of rugby fans entertained for two hours - that’s a lot of ad-libbing - while they waited in vain to see where Clarence the cow did a poo. There was a £1,000 prize at stake.
Plus… it’s not every week that the Transport Secretary’s car has to get towed away after hitting a pothole, golden eagles could be coming back to our skies, and Alan Shearer is asking people to raise their hands for a million pound challenge exactly 20 years after his last game for Newcastle.
Oh, and this week’s nostalgic TV ad is a Guinness classic that I had forgotten all about. Time does go backwards in that one.
New energy in Blyth
It’s action stations in Blyth after confirmation that that town has secured £20m from the Government’s Pride in Place scheme.
Plans for the 10-year programme include improving the town centre, supporting local businesses, creating community activities, and helping tackle issues like anti-social behaviour.
Alan Ferguson, chair of the town’s Pride in Place board, said: “We are so proud to receive confirmation of the Blyth Pride in Place funding. I thank all the board members for their hard work and commitment through the consultation phases and preparing our bid. We can now put all our plans into action with our community.”
Vice chair Richard Wearmouth, the deputy leader of Northumberland County Council, said: “The town is on the up, being well positioned as a leading clean energy sector, the new rail line and major improvements delivered to kick start the renewal of the town centre. The Pride in Place Programme will build on this, enabling new projects in Blyth which focus on community and business-led improvements.”
Dozen share £12m
A dozen cultural venues and organisations across the North East are to receive a £12m share of the Government’s Arts Everywhere Fund, announced this week by Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy who has committed up to £1.5 billion to the cultural sector during this parliament.
The Government’s stated aim earlier this year was to save more than 1,000 arts venues, museums, libraries and heritage buildings across England.
The Baltic in Gateshead has been awarded £3,649,800, the largest sum destined for the North East from any of the three separate funds which fall under the Arts Everywhere Fund umbrella.
A grant of £393,068 to the Queen’s Hall Arts Centre in Hexham will allow them to put away the buckets and mend their leaking roof. And Hartlepool Borough Council will receive £2.4m from the Museum and Estate Development Fund to upgrade and modernise the seafront museum.
All the investments are being administered by Arts Council England (ACE). David Whetstone has all the details in Cultured. North East.
Town Hall tonic
One of the big winners from the Arts Everywhere Fund was Middlesbrough Council who secured £2.59m for essential repairs to the Town Hall’s roof, stonework and windows. It will be matched by a £2m investment from Middlesbrough Council to safeguard the cultural venue for future generations and support its long-term use.
Middlesbrough Mayor Chris Cooke said: “This is fantastic news and a major investment in our Town Hall. It plays a central role in Middlesbrough’s cultural life and this funding will help us continue to build momentum towards our bid to become the UK City of Culture 2029.”
More tonic
NHS patients on Tyneside and Teesside will get access to faster tests, checks and scans as part of a £237m Government programme to expand community diagnostic centres (CDCs).
CDCs at the Metrocentre in Gateshead and in Stockton are among 17 that are to be expanded, with new rooms and state-of-the-art scanning and diagnostic equipment significantly increasing the range and volume of tests each centre can offer.
The £10m investment at the Metrocentre, which we reported on in February (NHS success story in House of Fraser), will result in a big increase in the number of patients that can be seen.
Oh, the irony
You can’t seem to get away from potholes these days. Heidi Alexander certainly didn’t the other night and the Transport Secretary’s Mini Cooper had to be towed away after encountering a ‘moon-like crater’ on her way home from a Labour fund-raising event.
The irony wasn’t lost on her and she was quick to point out that the Government was giving record sums to tackle the issue. And this week it announced new rules on how pothole funding is spent, with financial penalties for councils who fail to demonstrate they are maintaining roads effectively.
Middlesbrough won’t have to worry too much about that - the council is repairing potholes at the second highest rate of any local authority in the UK, according to a survey.
Where eagles dare
They can reach speeds of up to 200mph as they dive, and can spot a rabbit moving three miles away (three miles!). Golden Eagles will soon be making a return to England with the Government pledging £1m towards their return - and Northumberland is in prime position to be the place for that to happen. Not everyone will be happy about it though, as the BBC reports.
A carer - aged 4
The charity Carers Northumberland reports that they have 777 carers in the county aged under 18 registered with them - the youngest aged only four.
Members of the Northumberland health and wellbeing board have been presented with the Northumberland Commitment to Carers Strategy, which sets out how the council, healthcare bodies, and other key bodies can support unpaid carers.
Flipping hotspots
The practice of ‘flipping’ homes – buying and reselling properties within 12 months – has plummeted to its lowest level in over a decade across England and Wales, new analysis reveals. But not in parts of the North East.
Property firm Hamptons, using Land Registry data, found that the North East remains a “flipping hotspot” with locations such as Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Stockton the most popular.
Helping hands needed
It was 20 years ago today that Alan Shearer played his last game for Newcastle, scoring from the penalty spot in an away win at Sunderland. The anniversary sees the launch of the ‘Million Pound Mission’ to fund a second hydrotherapy pool at the Alan Shearer Centre, which provides free support to children and adults with complex disabilities.
The former Newcastle and England captain said: “Twenty years ago, we started something that has changed thousands of lives but demand is growing fast, and standing still isn’t an option. If more families need us, then we have to step up again.
“This mission is about building for the next 20 years, and I’m asking people to ‘raise your hand’ and be part of that.”
I’ve started so…
I suspect gastropub owner Karen Errington regrets writing in the pub trade journal, The Morning Advertiser. Karen, of the Rat Inn in the Northumberland village of Anick near Hexham, admitted that she felt 'reckless' writing her comments.
Her recklessness extended to calling out an unnamed MP as tight-fisted for only having a starter and not leaving a tip, and she said the MP’s reluctance to order a main course was part of a growing trend “especially with the weight-loss jab situation” that was damaging the viability of country pubs.
It probably wasn’t wise of her to write that the MP was “glued to his phone throughout the meal, looking at his Instagram account to see how many likes he had or probably Googling his own name to see what came up.”
The Daily Mail picked up the story - and the fact that the politician in question was local MP Joe Morris.
A source close to Morris told the newspaper that the MP had dined at the pub with a couple of family members, that the bill had been more than £150 and that they hadn’t left a tip because they assumed a service charge had been added.
Viral-humour website The Poke collated some social media reaction which you can read here, with many people mistakenly thinking that the chef-owner of the Rat, as it is commonly known, had gone complaining to the Mail when she actually declined to comment to them.
High TEC
New College Durham was one of 19 new Technical Excellence Colleges announced by the Government this week. It will specialise in advanced manufacturing and will receive £175m in funding for high-quality teaching, better courses and “state-of-the-art specialist equipment”.
Teesside-based college group the Education Training Collective (Etc.) has been named one of just five clean energy TECs, placing it at the forefront of low carbon skills development.
Ten TECs specialising in construction were announced in the first wave last August including Sunderland.
The ‘pooby prize’ that wasn’t
Some of you will remember the Spot The Ball competitions that newspapers used to run. An action photograph of a football match was published. It had been divided into a grid and the ball was blanked out. Readers then put a cross in the square where they thought the ball was, cut out the coupon and sent their entry in to the paper.
Tynedale Rugby Club adapted that format. Except they used their pitch not a photograph. And, instead of a ball, supporters had to guess where Clarence the cow would do her business with a £1,000 ‘pooby prize’ to be won.
Saturday was the big day. Some 1,100 tickets had been sold, raising £10,000 for the club.
“Clarence was released at 6pm on a lovely spring evening in front of a large and well-refreshed crowd,” wrote Brian Tilley in the Hexham Courant. “But despite their raucous support, Clarence refused to do the business. For two hours, she wandered amiably around the field, while commentator Jack Walton kept the crowd entertained.”
(Respect to Jack. Two hours!)
As the light faded, the winner was declared as the person who had selected the square where Clarence did a No.1 rather than a No.2.
“Clarence was returned to her trailer in disgrace,” reported Brian. “And promptly nearly filled it in inglorious profusion.”
A quick word
University Hospitals Tees, which oversees the North Tees and Hartlepool and South Tees Hospitals NHS foundation trusts, said it is planning to cut about 600 roles, about 3.75% of the workforce, as part of cost cutting measures. Organisers of the annual Redefest in north Northumberland have taken the decision to cancel future events because of falling attendances, rising costs, and difficulties recruiting new committee members. Littlehaven Beach in South Shields and Cullercoats Bay in North Tyneside have been flagged as having ‘poor’ water quality, raising concerns for beachgoers. Professor Andy Dougill will join Northumbria from the University of York as the new Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost this summer. He will deputise for Vice-Chancellor Andy Long on regional, national and international engagements. Work has begun to transform the former mining site at Potland Burn, north of Ashington, into a wildlife hub. Officials say the 268-hectare venture will create a “complex mosaic of habitats” including grassland, scrub and ponds. Adam Carruthers, one of the two men who chopped down the Sycamore Gap tree, has been released early from prison under the home detention curfew scheme, meaning he is tagged and could be sent back to jail.
Final seven
A diverse range of seven creative businesses will share £170m - funding that brings an official end to the North East Shared Success Fund.
Delivered by Creative UK as part of the Mayor Kim McGuinness’ North East Culture and Creative Investment Programme (CCIP), the fund has equipped businesses with the resources they need to scale and innovate.
The successful seven are: Beatnik Studio, Global Underground, Idea Junkies, Persona Design, Schwartz-Patrick Media, SNIDE, and Wildcat Films.
Business briefs
Eight social landlords have formed a joint kitchen‑installation alliance expected to save more than £10m over the next decade. The group, members of the North East Housing Partnership, has partnered with Cramlington manufacturer JTC Furniture, creating eight jobs so far, with further roles to follow. Cutting-edge graphene technology firm SEEDS is expanding and moving into a new facility at NETPark which will allow the company to shift from research and development to manufacturing. Northumberland councillors have approved the building of the £25m Energy Central Institute in Blyth town centre. The development builds on the success of the nearby Energy Central Learning Hub, which has supported more than 5,000 learners since opening 15 months ago. Jatco’s £50m Sunderland plant will no longer make the three‑in‑one electric powertrain it was built for, Nissan has decided. The move leaves just 20 of 183 expected jobs in place. Virgin Money chief executive Chris Rhodes will retire in September following the completion of the £2.9 billion takeover by Nationwide. Newcastle-based Atelerix, a biotech company revolutionising cell preservation and biological transport, has agreed a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabian company JH Health. Paul Lancaster, co-founder of Stellar Business Events is expanding his successful PLATFORM events by holding his first full-day conference with start-ups and scale-ups at the heart of the agenda. Jarrow ventilation systems specialist Expervent has been sold to MARCH, the Glasgow-based company, formerly the Edwin James Group, which has more than 20 sites in Scotland and England.
2005 ad break
Just when I thought I had brought you all the classic Guinness ads, up pops this one from 2005. After four years without a major brand film, Diageo needed a statement piece to revive the Good things come to those who wait series.
NoitulovE used reverse evolution to dramatise the value of patience and became the most awarded commercial in the world in 2006 - and it also reversed Guinness’s sales slump.
In an era when Sky+ was launched, it was also one of the first ads made to combat the Fast Forward button - the blur of images was designed to make people stop and rewind.
THE WIDER VIEW
Dire Straits
The UK could face some gaps on supermarket shelves this summer if disruption caused by the Iran war continues, with shortages of carbon dioxide potentially hitting supplies of chicken, pork and fizzy drinks, reports The Guardian.
Government ministers are drawing up contingency plans for a “reasonable worst-case scenario” if the Strait of Hormuz does not reopen, disrupting supplies of the CO2 required by the food industry.
That’s why last month the Government said it would invest £100m to reopen the mothballed Ensus bioethanol plant on Teesside over fears that the war in Iran could trigger shortages of the gas.
NHS patients risk prescription shortages within weeks if the US and Iran fail to strike a deal to end the conflict, according to The Telegraph.
Medicines UK, which represents companies that make 85% of all NHS prescriptions, said it was “increasingly concerned that some chemicals and solvents used to manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients are now in very short supply”.
Then there’s the farmers. The cost of fuel and fertilizer has rocketed just before the planting season - it’s estimated that about a third of the global seaborne trade in fertilizers passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
And builders across the country are braced for a surge in costs triggered by the war in Iran. John Newcomb, the chief executive of the Builders Merchants Federation, said he was hearing of price increases of up to 20% on some materials.
Britain’s biggest housebuilder, Barratt Redrow, said it was considering using more timber if bricks and other heavy materials became too expensive.
Maybe we need some divine intervention, Donald.
Memorable advice
The headline in The Conversation caught my eye: ‘Five tips to make your memory work more effectively’. I thought I would share it with you before I forget.
You can read it for yourself here. Essentially, the tips are: put your phone away (they’re a ‘brain drain’ apparently); stop your mind racing (I like the sound of ‘cyclic sighing’); get chunking (see video); become a retriever (distributed retrieval practice offsets the forgetting curve); and give yourself a break.
Some people…
You learn something new…
I knew that Natasha Kaplinsky used to read the news and that she is a former winner of Strictly Come Dancing. I did not know that she is Britain’s official film censor, and has been since 2022 - it’s her signature on the ratings certificate that pops up on cinema screens before you watch a film.