Have you heard of a review that didn’t look back? Welcome to Newcastle.
For years we have heard stories, allegations and rumours about what has been going on behind closed doors at the Civic Centre in Newcastle. The people, the personalities, the clashes.
An independent inquiry was promised in December 2024. That delayed report was delivered months ago and has just been made public - and now we discover it does not cover old ground.
That is today’s main story. Before that though, there’s the pioneering North East company looking to create hundreds of jobs - they first need certainty on the government’s net zero credentials.
Then there’s the UK Town of Culture. Just under 400 wannabes, 20 from the region, but only one makes the shortlist of 15.
There’s a lovely piece of nostalgia from former BBC man Chris Stewart who remembers the Durham Miners’ Gala in the 70s and a feature on how bees are helping young men struggling with mental health and loneliness.
Give us certainty on net zero
A pioneering North East company which uses solar cells smaller than a human hair to generate energy is calling for certainty from politicians on net zero so that it can create hundreds of jobs in the region.
Power Roll currently employs around 35 people at its test plant in Murton, County Durham. In March, it signed a Joint Development Agreement with Japanese utility giant Tokyo Gas.
“It’s truly groundbreaking and we are working with partners in the UK and internationally to scale this up and bring it to market, chief executive Neil Spann told Richard Moss, the BBC’s North East and Cumbria political editor.
The company has plans to build a factory which could employ up to 500 people but any uncertainty over the Government’s net zero target could make it harder to realise the investment and risked driving jobs overseas.
The BBC’s special report on energy, which was covered in yesterday’s edition of Politics North, said an estimated 35,000 people in the North East were employed in the green energy sector and generated £2.7 billion a year for the economy.
Other parts of the energy sector though are seeing a change of Prime Minister as an opportunity.
David Whitehouse, from Offshore Energies UK, said British oil and gas would be a better choice than using imported fuel while the country makes the transition to net zero. “I think it is time for an approach that makes the most of all our energy, and all of our skills.”
Twenty to one…
OK, so there were nearly 400 entrants, but in the end only one of the 20 North East entries made the shortlist to be named UK Town of Culture.
So, congratulations to Stockton (the town centre ward, to be precise), who will compete with Ilfracombe (Devon), The Isle of Bute (Firth of Clyde), Lerwick (Shetland), Sandown (Isle of Wight) and Strabane (Northern Ireland) in the small town category.
The winners of the small, medium and large town categories will then go head-to-head for the crown and a £3m grant from the Government.
Having shown admirable ambition, it will be interesting to see what happens next in Alnwick, Amble, Ashington, Barnard Castle, Bedlington, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Bishop Auckland, Blyth, Cramlington, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Hexham, Jarrow, North Shields, Peterlee, Redcar, Seaham, Shildon and Stanley.
Under the influence(rs)
Here’s one for you. A Freedom of Information (FOI) request showed that a North East council spent nearly £2,000 with social media influencers from outside the area to promote some local events and exhibitions.
That’s a waste of taxpayers money, said some, because there was no way the council could prove any return on the investment. Others saw it as simply a form of advertising and a way to boost the local economy.
The council in question, by the way, is Stockton - the only one of the 20 North East councils still in the running to be UK Town of Culture.
A quick word
North East stars JADE and Sam Fender were among the winners at this year’s O2 Silver Clef Awards at the Royal Albert Hall. Former Little Mix star, JADE picked up the Best Female Award, while Sam was named Best Live Act. Since launching in 1976, the awards have raised millions of pounds to support Nordoff and Robbins’ music therapy work with children and adults across the UK. The Tyne Theatre & Opera House Preservation Trust has been awarded £522,011 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to progress its plans for the historic Grade I listed theatre. It paves the way for a further application for £5m to refurbish the auditorium and create a second community performance space. A three-year Tees Valley Local Skills Improvement Plan, which identifies what is needed to better align post-16 education and training with employer demand, has been published by the North East Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with Tees Valley Combined Authority. The awards keep coming for Hays Travel. The Sunderland company picked up a stack of awards including the big one, High Street Agency of the Year, at the coveted Agent Achievement Awards in London. A Gateshead council by-election held after a Reform councillor resigned after two weeks has been won by Reform’s Lindsay Atkinson by just five votes following a recount. Durham County Council has refused permission for a solar farm on green belt land in Seaham which would have generated enough electricity to power about 16,000 homes. The train the late queen travelled on when she officially opened the Metro in 1981 has been sprayed with graffiti less than two weeks after being donated to the North East Land, Sea and Air Museum in Washington. Newcastle University has awarded honorary degrees to video game pioneer Phil Scott, London Stock Exchange CEO Dame Julia Hoggett and the Government’s first Women’s Health Ambassador, Dame Lesley Regan.
Galas past and present
‘The past we inherit, the future we build’ was the theme of the 140th Durham Miners’ Gala as music, marching, flags and banners filled the streets of the city at the weekend. Well, an estimated 200,000 people filled the streets, but you know what I mean.
The event is as popular today as it was when it was first held in 1871. If you’ve never been, then you should read Chris Stewart’s boyhood memories of the big meet. If you have been, then you’ll love it even more.
“With pockets full of coins and bellies full of butterflies, all the kids would be dressed in their best summer gladrags. All the dads would be booted and suited in their best binge-drinking chic. All the mams would be in flowery frocks and would be laden with flasks of tea, bottles of Villa pop and packets of sandwiches.”
And then there was 1975, the year he looked up to the balcony of the County Hotel and saw his dad standing behind Prime Minister Harold Wilson…
A great read.
Opening date
Culture House Sunderland, the new venue and library at Keel Square, in the heart of the city’s designated cultural quarter, is to open on Saturday, September 12, it has been announced.
The multi-million-pound building, described as “a living room in the heart of the city”, will host events and exhibitions over four floors and be the home to the new and modern city library.
Caring qualities
Caring for bees requires patience in place of speed, attentiveness rather than dominance, and cooperation instead of competition - that’s why it’s a great choice for young men struggling with mental health or loneliness.
Michael Joseph Richardson, a senior lecturer in human geography at Newcastle University, has written an article for The Conversation about two projects he is involved with. One is on the rooftop of Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and the other is also in Gateshead at Chopwell Woods.
“Looking after bees requires commitment and consistency, qualities that are often left out of public discussions about young men,” he says.
Giving it large
I meant to mention it earlier but an exhibition of photographs by Tish Murtha is on at Baltic. How could I forget?
Tish was a day short of her 57th birthday when she died in 2013, unexpectedly, of a brain aneurysm. Had she lived, she would have recently turned 70. That her life was relatively short is terribly sad… and sadness seems but a blink away in many of her photos, as David Whetstone writes in Cultured. North East.
“An exhibition at Baltic of photographs by Tish Murtha seems long overdue but now that it’s here you could hardly argue they’ve stinted in acknowledging her achievements,” he says. “A sliver of one of her photos of the Elswick kids she immortalised, grubby fingered and wistful, runs up the outside of the building. And inside… well, wow!
“A touching photo you could almost now call famous, capturing two children in a moment of endearment, greets you as you enter the Level 3 gallery, blown up huge.”
But, as David reports, those cute youngsters wrapped up in each other’s presence are also no longer with us.
It can’t be it
It was a long time coming, but we have eventually got to hear the conclusion of an independent review into the culture inside Newcastle Civic Centre.
As we reported in Friday’s edition (Eyes & Ears 10.07.26), the outcome was rather ‘underwhelming’. Now that we’ve had a chance to look more closely, there are other adjectives that would be more appropriate. We’ll settle for ‘unsatisfactory’ for now.
You only have to get to Page 4 of the Local Government Association’s Peer Team Report when you discover that the review/inquiry/investigation is not what you (I) expected it to be:
“The review is focused on the point in time the activity is taking place. It is not a retrospective review, nor an investigation, into previous activities, actions or behaviours. That is outside of the scope of this review. To be clear, therefore, this review is about now and forward, not what has happened before, but it does recognise the context.”
Say what?
The review is not about what has happened before? I thought that was the whole point of it. Who decided on that scope? This is coming up before the full council soon, so I’m sure someone will ask.
To recap, in the autumn of 2023 Newcastle Chief Executive Pam Smith spoke to the council’s audit committee and refused to deny the presence of a “toxic atmosphere” and bullying at the council.
What she said prompted the Chair and another committee member to warn council leader Nick Kemp of their “grave concerns and serious reservations concerning a number of governance issues” - including claims that some top executives were “unwilling or reluctant to answer challenging questions openly”.
In September 2024, council leader Nick Kemp resigned after being accused of bullying by senior official Michelle Percy. He was later cleared of breaching its code of conduct. The investigation by law firm Bevan Brittan LLP found that “more could have been done” to deal with her concerns at an earlier stage to “diffuse the situation” between two of the highest-ranking public figures in Newcastle.
It took around nine months and cost taxpayers more than £74,000.
Kemp and five other Labour councillors quit the group to become independents - leaving new party leader Karen Kilgour in charge of a minority administration.
Then came an astonishing full council meeting in December 2024. Kilgour first survived a vote of no confidence. Then the opposition Lib Dems put forward a resolution to “immediately” instigate an independent inquiry into the behind-the-scenes culture that had been taking place in the Civic Centre over recent years.
The quote marks around ‘immediately’ are mine because they seem so ironic now.
Kilgour’s Labour group voted WITH the Lib Dems - and an independent inquiry was assured.
This was in December 2024, don’t forget.
It was then decided that the ‘immediate’ inquiry into the culture within the Civic Centre could not begin until the bullying inquiry involving the (former) leader was concluded.
That meant that the LGA inquiry did not get underway until December 2025, a full year after it had been agreed - and some three or four years after the issues that me and other journalists (and the Lib Dems) were only too well aware of.
But now we learn that the scope of the LGA inquiry - one that is said to have cost a six figure sum - was limited. Councillors will have many questions. Among them will be:
Who decided that the LGA review was limited to ‘now and forward’?
If the review was not retrospective, how can it conclude that there was ‘good leadership, effective governance and good relationships between the corporate leadership team (CLT) and cabinet’?
Who decided that publication of the report should be held back when it was ready weeks before the May elections?
And since the Lib Dems are now running the council there should be no problems getting all the answers we expect.
