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Coalfield cash

2:22pm Friday 12th March 2010

MEASURING progress in economic regeneration is notoriously difficult, as we have found this week. According to the Commons Public Accounts Committee, efforts to regenerate the country’s former pit areas have failed and no more money should be spent without a fresh approach.

Sign language

2:25pm Friday 5th March 2010

INAPPROPRIATE signage can be a blight on our finer townscapes and rural areas. The problem is recognised in many planning policies, most of which have controls on signs, particularly in urban conservation areas, national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty.

The show goes on

2:07pm Friday 26th February 2010

THE disappointment felt by those behind the bid to bring the UK City of Culture title to Durham in 2013 is acute. It is fair to say that confidence was very high after the bid made it to the first not-soshortlist of 14.

Slow to change

3:50pm Friday 19th February 2010

WE predicted here some months ago that the squeeze on the public sector was the greatest economic threat to the region and Durham in particular. While there may be some signs of life in the private sector, the Government’s massive debt means that whoever is in power come May, the public expenditure cuts will have to be substantial.

Voice for the North

2:56pm Friday 12th February 2010

SIGNS that the Conservatives may be changing their attitudes towards the regional economic development agencies are welcome in more ways than one. Apart from demonstrating the party is not in an ideological straitjacket about how regional development should be best achieved, the change of heart indicated by the Shadow Business Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, suggests that the importance of One North East to the region has been understood.

The BNP question

2:21pm Friday 5th February 2010

MOST people in this county, perhaps a substantial majority, abhor everything the British National Party stands for. Despite the efforts it has made to appear a mainstream political movement, it remains on the fringe of democratic debate, peddling its bizarre mix of Toytown economic theory, Little Englander foreign policies and barely-disguised racial hatred.

Have a heart

2:11pm Friday 29th January 2010

IT IS the end of January and no doubt one or two of those new year resolutions may be at risk of being broken. It is a tough time in many respects, but we ask readers to make one additional resolution and back our Heart of Durham Appeal in some way, however small.

Be sure to listen

2:13pm Friday 22nd January 2010

IGNORING the views of 6,000 petitioners, and another 4,000 who expressed a view online, takes some doing in a city the size of Durham, but that is what the Government has done in its decision over the Market Place statues.

Battling on

1:45pm Friday 15th January 2010

THE problems faced by gritting lorries this week brought home the hazardous nature of the tasks faced by many public servants during the bad weather. Luckily, nobody was hurt when four gritters slid off the black ice-covered highways on Wednesday morning. But it was an indication of the difficulties faced, even as the weather improved, by those charged with keeping roads open, hospitals running and patients collected, meals delivered and providing all the services we take for granted at other times of the year.

Not an easy task

1:35pm Friday 8th January 2010

LOCAL authorities have come in for criticism this week. As the snow has fallen and the ice has formed, thousands of miles of roads and paths have become a lottery, especially so for the elderly and infirm.

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