It’s a privilege to welcome so many new readers today. We launched The Source at an event in Newcastle on Tuesday. Since then, we have had more than 120 people sign up to get our journalism delivered straight to their inboxes every Monday and Friday - just like the rest of you!
So what’s changed? The Source is a new online newspaper for the North East, a modern platform for public interest journalism, engaging columnists and a launchpad for the next generation of great storytellers - and the new home of Eyes & Ears.
Eyes & Ears isn’t going anywhere. It will still be here week after week - as a column that sits inside The Source.
The Source becomes the main brand that will provide an increasing amount of quality stories you can trust. Independent, politically-neutral but North East biased. Here’s how I explained it on Tuesday…
I have been publishing Eyes & Ears for free (and unpaid) since December 2024. The launch of The Source is an opportunity to build on the strengths and lessons of The QT, and the proven audience for Eyes & Ears, and to provide the North East with a platform that provides regionally unique public benefit journalism.
We need money to grow. Steph McGovern, who was such a star at the launch event, is investing in The Source through the SEIS scheme. There are other ways to help - the most straightforward is to upgrade from free to a paying subscriber. You can do that here:
We have also launched a Crowdfunder with the specific purpose of hiring a reporter who will be dedicated to public benefit journalism. This is a one-off donation and we have had amounts ranging from £5 to £2,000 so far. The address is:
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/thesource
There will be a picture gallery from the event in Monday’s edition of The Source. Now on with today’s Eyes & Ears column…
‘Utterly unacceptable’
Twenty women had their breasts removed unnecessarily while being treated for cancer. They were among hundreds of patients who came to harm during treatment at the breast unit of the County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust (CDDFT).
The trust’s admission comes in the wake of revelations about serious failures in the unit, as reported by the BBC’s Sharon Barbour last year.
Steve Russell, who has recently taken over as CDDFT’s chief executive, says he apologises “unreservedly” for the harm the trust caused. “There are no words I could use to convey how personally distressed I am. What happened was utterly unacceptable.”
CDDFT is now carrying out an internal review of breast cancer cases between January 2023 and February 2025, alongside the cases of 640 former patients who contacted a dedicated helpline.
Of 514 cases reviewed by the trust so far, 315 patients have been found to have suffered harm, including 77 who were significantly harmed. One patient is known to have died.
‘Angry children’ force diversion
Large groups of youngsters have forced buses to be diverted in an area of Newcastle with residents saying they are scared to go out in the evening.
Stagecoach said a series of incidents had led to the decision to re-route nine services in Blakelaw after 6.30pm. A bus was damaged, drivers have suffered verbal abuse and there has been threatening anti-social behaviour from large groups.
“I believe the children are winning,” a Blakelaw resident told BBC Radio Newcastle. “They’re mugging the bus drivers and they’re throwing bricks through car windows as well.” Another said: “They’ve got to do something about it, all these angry children. They need to be finding somewhere for them to go.”
Whatever happened to youth clubs…
£1m for youth hubs
Newcastle has secured a £1m investment to transform youth services across the city after being selected for the Government’s Young Futures Hubs and Local Youth Transformation programme.
Designed to bring services together in one place, the hubs will connect youth work with mental health support, education, employment services, community organisations and voluntary sector partners. They aim to improve opportunities and wellbeing while reducing the risk of young people becoming involved in violence or crime.
Reform ‘betrayal’
Reform stormed to victory in the Durham County Council elections in May last year winning 65 of the 98 seats. Today their majority is down to three after three more of their councillors resigned from the party on Tuesday to sit as independents.
We reported last week (Eyes & Ears 11.09.26) on a Sky News investigation which revealed divisions within the council, with multiple former Reform councillors describing a culture of fear and infighting.
Council leader Andrew Husband said: “These people have let their residents down. They have conned them using Reform colours and betrayed the many members who spent their time and money to help get them elected.”
Mind the gap
A day after the resignations, Durham’s Cabinet was told that the authority faces an £83.7m funding gap and may need four years of near-maximum council tax rises, job losses and wider use of artificial intelligence to balance the books because of rising demand for services including social care, school transport and waste collection.
Deputy leader Darren Grimes told councillors that the authority would maintain a “laser-like focus” on stripping out waste and avoidable costs, while leader Andrew Husband insisted Durham remained in a stronger financial position than many councils.
Lib Dem opposition leader Amanda Hopgood said: “They set a budget this year knowing that they were creating a future black hole. They pleaded for more money from the government, now they’ve got it and they squandered it.”
Kicks start
There was good news for Nissan’s 6,000 workers in Sunderland this week. The company announced a £170m investment to build the second generation Kicks at the North East plant.
The hybrid electric vehicle is currently built in Japan, Mexico and Brazil. It will be built alongside its Qashqai, Juke and Leaf models on Wearside.
Business and Trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “Nissan has been at the heart of British manufacturing for four decades. The decision to build this new model in Sunderland is a huge vote of confidence in the UK’s manufacturing expertise and automotive future.”
Payback time
Prisons minister Catherine McKinnell joined a nurdle clean-up session at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea this week, organised as part of a community payback programme for low-level offenders.
An estimated 17 tonnes of the small plastic pellets spewed into the Tyne in July after a collision between two vessels. An army of volunteers has been assisting with the massive clean-up ever since.
“I think it has affected the whole of the North East,” said the Newcastle North MP. “I have a lot of constituents who are very concerned about this, which is why I was very pleased we were bringing the community payback team here and we have picked up a lot of nurdles.
“I know how amazing the community has been in going out and getting them picked up, but that should not have been required. We need to look at what has happened and make sure it does not happen again.”
A good starting point would be our edition from six weeks ago (Eyes & Ears 07.08.26) where we highlighted the classification of nurdles and the use of ‘single bags’ to transport them.
The clean-up in Newbiggin involved offenders sentenced to carry out work to pay back communities for their crimes, rather than serving time in prison. McKinnell said it was important for people to see evidence of the justice system in action and that such community schemes can prevent re-offending.
Inquest delayed - again
The brother of a BBC charity worker who was killed while working in Kenya has expressed frustration at further delays to her inquest there.
Kate Mitchell, 42, from Whitley Bay, was working for BBC Media Action when she was found dead in her hotel room in Nairobi in November 2021. An inquest held in the UK ruled she had been unlawfully killed. A Kenyan inquest has been taking place since last year but has been repeatedly delayed.
Kenyan police believe a man killed her before leaping to his death.
Proceed with caution
In motoring terms, Northumberland council leader Glen Sanderson has taken his foot off the accelerator when it comes to data centre development in the county - but he hasn’t touched the brakes.
US firm QTS are building one of the largest data centre sites in Western Europe at Cambois. Two more data centre applications have been lodged - all within a few square miles of one another.
There have been demonstrations against the plans while Blyth and Ashington MP Ian Lavery made a call in Parliament for a moratorium on further construction.
Sanderson said: “We very much welcome the £10 billion investment in Cambois which will benefit all the county through the £110 million growth fund. However, there is a limit to how many data centres could be put in Northumberland. I think it is fair to say that most members here are keen not to see overdevelopment.”
Tale of two tapestries
While the Bayeux Tapestry is attracting sell-out visitor numbers in London, panels from the North East’s own 174-year-old version are coming out of storage to go on show.
Antiquarian and historian the Rev John Collingwood Bruce commissioned the copy in the early 1850s from pupil John Moffat at his school in Percy Street in Newcastle.
Moffat, a relation of David Livingstone, the missionary and explorer, set to work to complete drawings of the tapestry in a series of paper panels, now the subject of a restoration programme to remove decades of dirt after many years in storage.
Newcastle University’s Great North Museum: Hancock will open a free exhibition from October 10 until January 17, titled Bayeux-on-Tyne: Drawing the Bayeux Tapestry. Tony Henderson has more here in Cultured. North East.
Our ‘accidental benefit’
A nine-year-old boy was chosen to press the button to start filling the Kielder Water reservoir in 1982, flooding the multiple farms and homes that once stood in the valley. Some 44 years later Jonty Hall is now in his 37th year working for Northumbrian Water at the lake he helped create.
Kielder now plays a part in ensuring the North East is one of the most water secure regions in the world, says Professor John Tomaney. “Built to supply a now lost steel industry, it provides an important asset as we face more drought prone conditions. An accidental benefit of deindustrialisation that requires careful nurturing.”
The BBC has published an interesting article on Kielder and the region’s water security. Newcastle University hydrology researcher Dr Anna Murgatroyd was part of a team that modelled climate effects across England and Wales up to 2080, work that suggested the North East would see a rise in drought conditions but remain more water secure than other regions.
Professor Kiran Tota-Maharaj, from the University of Hull, said Kielder remains an example of “best practice” in water engineering. “It has served its purpose and it is resilient, especially during unforeseen conditions.”
A quick word
A plaque commemorating the ‘Birtley Belgians’, the civilians and wounded soldiers who worked in an ammunitions factory in the first World War, has been unveiled at St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Gateshead. Prince Bishop Primary School at Coundon Grange in Bishop Auckland had to stop serving hot meals after rats were seen in the kitchen area. An action group has sent an open letter to Forestry England and Forest Holidays urging them to drop plans for a holiday park in Hamsterley Forest, County Durham. The infant known as Baby Auckland, whose remains were discovered in a newspaper from 1910 during renovation work, was unlawfully killed by strangulation, a coroner has concluded. Organisers have hailed the return of the Durham City Show after an absence of 15 years as a big success and said it made the city feel like a big village. Around 1,500 people attended the event on Sunday. Durham County Council has scrapped its blanket ban on cockerels on allotments and will revert to its previous policy of allowing them on certain sites with permission. The Grade II-listed Whitburn Windmill, which has been fenced off since being damaged in winter storms, is to have its wooden sails removed by South Tyneside Council due to structural concerns.
Hat Trick own goal*
The makers of Have I Got News For You upset the good people of Teesside - not least because they couldn’t even spell Middlesbrough correctly.
One of their regular headline posts on Twitter said: “England’s mayors to be given power to introduce tourist tax. Because who hasn’t been to Middlesborough and thought ‘I should have paid more money to be here’.”
The reaction is what you would expect, but the curious thing is that the long-running comedy programme is made by Hat Trick Productions, the company that is also behind another BBC comedy Smoggie Queens, which is set and filmed in Middlesbrough, following a group of friends who are fiercely proud of the town.
It looks like Hat Trick Productions has taken down the post.
*I know it sounded like two football expressions joined together, but it makes sense now
Business bites
A delegation led by Energi Coast and the region’s two mayoral authorities is heading to Germany on Tuesday to showcase our expertise, infrastructure and investment opportunities at the three-day WindEnergy Hamburg event. Durham University spin-out Magnitude Biosciences has secured £1.3m in funding to commercialise VivoScan which provides pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with faster and more cost-effective ways to identify promising new treatments for ageing, longevity and neurodegenerative diseases. Filtronic has secured its third contract to supply satellite communication parts to an unnamed US-based firm. The £5.9m agreement will see the business design, develop and build prototype units for satellite deployment and is expected to be completed in the first half of Filtronic’s 2028 financial year. Sunderland-based renewables firm OnPath Energy is to continue to invest in its growth strategy despite a dip in turnover and operating profit. It expects to bring forward several new project proposals in England in the coming months, while it is currently exploring a range of potential new development locations across England, Scotland and Wales. Blaydon-based HLF, which manufactures and supplies contract standard furniture to hotels, serviced apartments and holiday parks, has seen revenues increase by 40% and expects turnover to increase to £3.5m in the next 12 months. Gateshead surveying company Academy Geomatics is continuing its growth by opening a new base in Warrington. Osbit has been appointed by Belgian offshore construction company Jan De Nul Group to design and build a specialised machine which will bury high-voltage power cables up to five metres beneath the seabed. It will be designed at Osbit’s HQ in Riding Mill and built at its Build and Test facility in Blyth.
1996 ad break
New readers should know that every Friday we like to take a little ad break about now. It’s an excuse to show a TV ad from days gone by.
Given this week’s good news from Sunderland, we thought it appropriate to show a Nissan ad from the past. This one is a spoof of The Professionals, the action adventure TV series featuring Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins as Bodie and Doyle. It mimicks the fast-paced antics and banter of the original show so well - the Bodie character in particular.
The ad was released in 1996 to promote the new Almera GTi. There was a follow up ad which spoofed The Sweeney. It was a toss-up to decide which one to show you.
THE WIDER VIEW
Ssh! I’m busy doing nothing
How many of you fill “empty time” by reaching for your mobile or firing up a podcast, a playlist or whatever algorithmic feed is currently consuming your life? Chances are you are interrupting your brain mid-sentence.
When you learn something new, no matter how small or large, your brain does not simply file it away neatly. The memory is fragile at first, more like wet cement than carved stone. In the minutes and hours following new learning, the brain works to strengthen what it has taken in - something known as memory consolidation.
Research suggests that more information is retained when learning is followed by several minutes of quiet rest, says Michael Craig, assistant professor of psychology at Northumbria University.
In other words, your brain may be doing its most important work when you think you’re doing nothing.
Same words - seven different meanings
Go on, try it!
It’s turning ugly
More than a third of people in the US have lost relationships with friends, family, romantic partners and co-workers over political differences. Among the respondents, 62% had had fallouts – 40% of them with a family member.
“No one wants to cut off family, but at the same time, this has brought a lot of ugliness to light,” said a 34-year-old paralegal. “People are being openly racist, misogynistic, homophobic, etc.”
The researchers believe the trend is accelerating. And you do have to ask how widespread this sort of thing is becoming over here.
That Almera advert is a classic (and of its time!). Great issue as usual, thanks for keeping me informed about where I live.