1/1 HELLO everyone and welcome to my latest column for The Northern Echo, reflecting on life in the world of security. I wanted to start this time round with a warning about car parking fines, which aren’t always what they seem. We had an incident recently in which a Sparta task force officer called in for a coffee at McDonald’s, at Newton Aycliffe, at the start of his shift. It was 5.45pm in the evening and he then drove off to monitor various sites that we’re looking after around the region. He called back at the same McDonald’s the following morning, just before 6am.
Railway Housing Association has welcomed people to its newest scheme, 16 two-bedroom bungalows in Barton Street. The homes adjoin another development, known as The Sidings, completed by the association in 2019 and which included the sympathetic restoration of a listed railway engine shed from 1844. All the homes at Barton Street have been let to people aged 60 and over. Among the residents to move in are Rose and Andrew Inglis, aged 74 and 75, respectively. They downsized from the three-bedroom family home they lived in for 49 years. Mrs Inglis said: “I was struggling with the stairs in our old home and someone we knew lived in a Railway Housing Association bungalow, so they recommended we put our name down on the waiting list.
A HOUSING association is working
The remains of the old King James I Grammar School after fire ravaged the Laurel Building in March, 2007 on the £5.2 million redevelopment of a rundown old school which was once attended by comedy legend Stan Laurel. Railway Housing Association is building 28 affordable homes for rent on the site of the old King James School at Bishop Auckland. This includes the sympathetic restoration of the front of the main Grade II listed building - often referred to as the Laurel Building after the school’s most famous former popular pupil – which was badly damaged in a fire in 2007.