Press and Public Relations

This is our Press and Public Relations Page.  On this page, we plan to embed feeds to all our local on-line media sites.  We do this so you can browse their on-line pages in your owntime. Presently, we circulate e-papers on forum daily, as we do also for some national reporting when this is considered relevant. We invite you to work with us around this page so we may reserve forum messages for significant news items.

This page will also list useful contact names and telephone numbers of the newsmediato which you might add more.  You might also want to contact the newsmedia yourself, take part in an on-line blog or engage with the media in other ways.  If you do this, please keep us informed so we can share your story with others, either with a forum message or through this webpage.

We do absolutely recognise that as busy people it may not always be possible for everyone to read everything all the time! That's why we monitor media feeds feeds daily ourselves and flag-up those items that we think may be of direct interest to you or where there might be a useable story-line for you. You can help us by doing the same and we might do this by way of a comment to which others can join their own.

The Pontburn Valley Net also manages a scrapbook of past press cuttings. This is held in the Dipton Commniy Centre

Please tell us if you or your organisation is planning an activity or event, or you need help preparing a press release or in contacting the press.  All this takes is a comment below.

18 Oct 08 - Leadgate Needs Help from DDC

There are few villages in NE England without a cycle –way.  This is hardly surprising as most were created from the railways which serviced our coal mines and heavy industries.  Now we have natural corridors that are shared by pedestrians and cyclists alike.  Wild-life of the natural kind, not of the sort that usually mars the quiet enjoyment of the majority by the few, is returning.

But this happy situation cannot possibly continue without the active support and perhaps intervention of the Derwentside District Council.  For there remains the same issues around ownership now, 150 days on since the “project” began as when it first started.

Few of our villages can boast to be as neatly divided in two as Leadgate.  Here Sustrans Coast to Coast (C2C) passes East to West, crossing the Roman Watling Street just a few yards away from the cross-roads that mark the very heart of Leadgate.

Yet for near to 2 decades issues around ownership have caused what might have made what is now a green and pleasant corridor to be neglected and overgrown, a magnet for anti-social behaviour and a nightmare for residents and cyclists alike. Now, thanks to the efforts of the Pont Valley Network, an organisation supporting all the people of the Pontburn Valley, there has this year been a transformation. 

Cyclists no longer pedal furiously to pass through as quickly as possible.  Lawns have been laid, gardens planted out, attractive seats made from salvaged timber and stone recovered from areas previously buried under mounds of rubbish and all with a little self-help, determination and ingenuity.  All without the help, financial or otherwise, from any outside organisation!

In the past there has been a steadfast refusal by DDC and Sustrans to sit down and resolve issues.  Now the Pont Valley Network has shown how we might continue, if only we all find common ground, exactly as we had centuries ago and allow our communities to take care of themselves.

Leadgate is looking good, but it can’t possibly stay that way without council support in routine, daily ways. Such an important part of the village cannot be allowed to become such an eyesore again and it should not fall upon one or two community-minded individuals to take matters into their own hands.

Sustrans, at least at local level, have suggested a mechanism where this might be achieved through a leasing agreement.  It should be possible to build on this suggestion and come up with a contract that allows the council to work with the village caretakers to keep this new-found sense of community pride and involvement growing.  How about it DDC?

For further  information contact David Shields, Moderator at www.pontvalley.net on e e-mail fpmnc@btinternet.com, telephone 01207 582385 or call in at Clifton House, 17 St Ives Road, Leadgate (DH8 7PY).

21 Januay 2011

Created on 26/05/2007 10:08 PM by dshields Updated on 21/02/2011 09:51 AM by dshields