Latest news with #Darlington
The Sun
an hour ago
- Business
- The Sun
Adored Italian restaurant with 90 branches across the UK closes in town centre after serving customers for over 9 years
A POPULAR Italian restaurant branch is sadly set to close its doors in a north of England town centre. Bella Italia has announced the closure of its Darlington branch at the end of its current lease in early July. 2 It was one of the first restaurants to open in the DL1 complex when it launched in 2016. But it is now set to wrap up operations at the site after nine years of serving happy customer s. No specific reason has been given for the restaurant's sudden closure. However, Bella Italia has confirmed the branch will close its doors in the first week of July. A spokesperson for the chain paid tribute to the "fantastic" branch staff as they announced the closure. They said: 'We can confirm that our restaurant in Darlington will cease trading at the end of our current lease in the first week of July. "We would like to thank our fantastic team at Darlington who have done an amazing job over the years. "We would also like to thank our wonderful Darlington guests; we hope to see them again in one of our other north-east restaurants." It comes as number of big name businesses continue to pull out of the DL1 complex in Darlington's town centre. Tomahawk Steakhouse, Prezzo, Mango Bean are among the others to have left the site. A spokesperson told the Northern Echo in April that it is 'still in the process of reviewing future plans and no final decision has yet been made regarding reopening'. Bella Italia remains one of Britain's most popular Italian restaurant chains, with dozens of venues across the UK and Ireland. Its parent company went into administration in 2020 at the height of the COVID pandemic. The company would be acquired and re-branded later that year.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Patient treated at scene of Darlington crash after suspected 'medical episode'
A patient was treated at the scene of a crash in Darlington today but refused hospital treatment after a suspected 'medical incident'. Ambulance were called to the Morton Park roundabout at 11.06 this morning (May 31) after reports of a one vehicle crash. The patient was treated at the scene but refused hospital treatment, the ambulance service confirmed. An eyewitness of the crash posted on Facebook that everyone was okay, despite being a bit 'shaken'. READ MORE: Everything you need to know ahead of the Ali Brownlee 5k tomorrow Multiple arrests made as North East police forces join to crackdown on rural crime County Durham family speak of 'unimaginable grief' one year on from tragic crash A North East Ambulance Service spokesperson said: "We were called to a one vehicle road traffic incident today (31 May) at 11:06am. "We dispatched one ambulance crew and one patient was treated on scene but refused hospital treatment." The Northern Echo has contacted Durham Constabulary for more information on this incident.
BBC News
8 hours ago
- General
- BBC News
Britain's five best slow train journeys
As England celebrates the 200th anniversary of rail travel, author and train expert Tom Chesshyre reveals his favourite rides across the UK. Two hundred years ago in a small market town in north-east England, something happened that had never been seen before: ticket-holding travellers boarded carriages and eagerly awaited as a steam locomotive hauling passenger cars began to slowly rattle along wrought-iron tracks. The locomotive-powered series of cars and carriages was called a train, and this first 26-mile journey in 1825 from Darlington to Stockton birthed the modern railway and forever changed the world. The bicentennial of this momentous event was the impetus for author, traveller and train enthusiast Tom Chesshyre's most recent book, Slow Trains Around Britain. For more than 20 years, Chesshyre has been riding the rails across the UK and around the world, totalling more than 40,000 miles in all. Chesshyre recently sat down with the BBC to talk about his new book, what still makes rail travel so alluring and his favourite "slow-train" rides (regional train trips) in Britain. What inspired you to write Slow Trains Around Britain? Well, it's a simple one, really, because it's the 200th anniversary of the first public passenger steam train! We, the British, invented the trains. It was a proud moment. I've been interested in railways for some time. It's a slower way [to travel]. You see places off the beaten track out of the train window. But it was the anniversary that really inspired it. Considering that trains are a more eco-friendly way to travel than flying and people are increasingly concerned about their carbon footprints, do you think we're on the verge of a resurgence in train travel? I think we've got a way to go. As long as the flight prices are so cheap, it's very tempting if you're in Britain to fly to Barcelona. You could fly there maybe for £60 return. But to get a train, it might cost £150 each way. The prices are so against it. However, there's a pass in Europe called the Interrail Pass, which is offered by a company called Rail Europe. In the past, it used to be mainly youthful backpackers, but I think now people are aware that if they've got two or three weeks off, they can book one of these rail passes and have an adventure around Europe by taking trains. Buying these passes makes it more affordable. The other thing is the high-speed train networks in Europe have [gotten] much better. Spain now has the best high-speed network in Europe, so now most people in Spain would not consider flying from the north to the do you think travellers remain fascinated by trains? There's a kind of nostalgia for the golden age of trains, when there was a kind of Agatha Christie feel: plush velvet seats (they were normally in the first class) waiters with bow ties and a mystique. This was very much where princes, royalty, celebrities, writers, actors and the aristocracy of Europe used to ride around on trains, say, from the 1890s to around the Second World War. This was the glamorous way of getting about, and I think in the back of people's minds, there's a belief that there's a kind of romance connected to train travel. You've [still] got these beautiful old stations, too. People may go to a station such as St Pancras in London with all this beautiful Gothic style, and they think: 'This is a beautiful setting.' Do you have a favourite international train trip that you've taken? Just for the sheer adventure of it … I enjoyed the Trans-Siberian Railway. I went from Moscow to Beijing, which was many thousands of miles; it took nine days. I liked it because you could see the scenery. We went into Siberia; we went above Mongolia. And when you're on a train for that long as a writer, I met all sorts of characters. I was confronted by a drunken Russian who was unhappy with me for some reason I didn't understand. I got to know the people who worked at the dining carriage and how the waitress was having an affair with the steward who ran the carriage. The actual train [becomes] its own ecosystem. I got to see the beautiful Ural Mountains, these industrial cities with their smokestacks, the great big pine forests and the expanse of the tundra. [It was] a sleeper car for eight nights, nine days, so this was quite an adventure. What do you hope readers take away from your book? Well, [train travel is] a way of getting about that opens up parts of the country you might not normally see – not just in Britain, but anywhere. And if you use a train line as a kind of means of getting about, you can stop off, and you don't have to worry about traffic jams. You don't have to worry. You're not having a big carbon footprint. You're not stressed out in a car, you can read a book, you can visit places that you wouldn't really see [otherwise] and I think we rush around so much in our lives that it's time that we should think about slowing down. There's no need to hurry, and that's what trains allow you to do. So just take it slow. These are Chesshyre's favourite slow train rides in Britain. Overall favourite: Inverness to Thurso on ScotRail Inverness is in the middle of Scotland, and then I went all the way up to the most northerly station in the whole of the UK, which is called Thurso. You go through this kind of moorland, almost like a kind of desolate landscape. It's really awe-inspiring and so quiet. You feel like you're taking a train and disappearing from modern life, leaving it behind. It's not an expensive ticket either; it's a regular train. You end up in this little town overlooking the Atlantic Ocean up there, and it's just a feeling of escape. (Interested? Check out this recent BBC Travel story: Scotland's most remote railway adventure.) Most picturesque: St Ives Bay Line The most picturesque of all was probably just the short journey from St Erth in Cornwall to St Ives, which is a kind of [an] old fishing village that all these artists went to live in. You go along this clifftop with a beach down below and all the waves crashing on the shore. You must sit on the right going in and on the left going out if you want to get the perfect view. Most fun: Craven Arms to Llanelli on Transport for Wales Going through the middle of Wales, it's called the Transport for Wales train line. You'd be [starting] in a place called Craven Arms and [going] as far as a place called Llanelli. This journey took about three hours, but it was on a Saturday evening, and people had brought their beer or wine and their snacks. I kind of sat, and I watched as people began singing some Welsh songs. [It became] a singalong! More like this:• The return of Mexico's famous Tequila Express train• The Baltic Express: Central Europe's new hop-on hop-off train• How the bullet train transformed Japan It wasn't like people were getting drunk; it was just kind of jolly. It was only one carriage for this train, so there was a small little party going on as the darkness fell, with the green hills around us on a very remote line. It was a very happy experience. Best for history buffs: New Romney to Dungeness on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway There are lots of these heritage lines; they're kind of like the old steam trains. You have in Britain 170 [of them], which is unbelievable, heritage lines covering around 600 miles. These are special little lines that might only just be open at the weekend. One of them went from a place called Hythe in Kent to Dungeness, which is where there's a former nuclear power station. It's tiny, and they have what are called 'narrow gauges'. So it's not the big, wide train, like a normal train. It's narrow … a 1-ft or 2-ft-wide track. It was created by an eccentric aristocrat who had a lot of money and decided to build a little toy train just for himself. It was like a little baby train. So, that was maybe a historic train line that I wouldn't have discovered if not for the book. Best for rail enthusiasts: North Yorkshire Moors Railway There was one place called the North Yorkshire Moors Railway that is up in the north-east, near the Stockton and Darlington, where I began the whole journey. In the 1960s, when motorways came along [in the UK], it began to basically make railways not so important. There was a massive cutback in railways in Britain. There were as many as 23,000 miles of train tracks, and now there are only 10,000 miles of train routes. But on one of these routes on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, rail enthusiasts reopened it in the 1970s. So, you can go along this little train track with all these old steam trains through beautiful moorlands, very remote. Lovely bracken and gorse on the hillside, and you see the steam trailing past the carriage windows. I was allowed to go in where they put the coal in, you know, and actually see the furnace at the front. At least 30,000 people volunteer to help these [old steam trains.] They're not for profit, most of these things. It shows that 200 years on, there is still a lot of respect and pride in Britain for the fact that trains were invented here. That was quite touching to see. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. --
BBC News
9 hours ago
- General
- BBC News
Darlington residents call for rules to stop smaller HMOs
A petition is calling on a council to stop the "uncontrolled transformation" of a of Greenbank Road in Darlington want measures to be put in place to stop landlords turning properties into houses of multiple occupation (HMOs)."Darlington Borough Council has lost control of the HMO situation in our neighbourhood," a letter to residents authority said it was looking into measures it could implement to address the concerns. There are about 400 HMOs in Darlington, according to the are used by residents, often students or young professionals, who rent their bedrooms and share living facilities. 'Unknown scale' Current rules mean that planning permission for an HMO is only needed when it will house more than five people. Specific measures – called an Article Four direction – can be implemented to require the landlord to seek permission for smaller Greenbank Road residents' petition said the council had "no way" of knowing how many houses had already been turned into HMOs and called for the Article Four direction to be made in their area."[The council] cannot make reasonable planning decisions by assessing the impact of new, large HMOs on our local streets if they don't know the scale of the local problem," it said.A spokesman at Darlington Borough Council said HMOs provided "a valuable contribution to housing provision for people who could not access the housing market through home ownership or added: "We also recognise that a concentration of unregulated HMOs can cause issues for neighbouring residents."The authority said while its own policies provided guidance for considering applications for larger HMOs, it did not cover those with fewer than five occupants."We have been working hard to look into measures, such as an Article Four direction, that can be introduced at the earliest opportunity to help control those smaller HMOs." Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Businesses react to parking charge increase
Business owners have warned increased parking charges could impact how long shoppers stay in a town centre. After free parking was scrapped in 2023, Darlington Borough Council is increasing fees again on Monday, raising the charge for a one-hour stay from £1 to £1.20. Store owner Karen Holmes said: "Rather than not come in at all, I think people are very wary of how much time they spend here, so that might affect it again." The Labour-led authority said it was aware of the concerns around the increase, but it was needed due to financial pressures. Ms Holmes, who runs Refrill Vintage on Bondgate, said: "It's only 20p at the end of the day, but if you want to stay all day, it's a pound." "If they made a couple of hours free, that would be great to bring people in," she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. A £5 cap will be enforced in short stay car parks. In the council's long stay car parks, charges will also increase to £1.20 per hour for up to three hours, £5 per day, or £20 for a weekly ticket. Victoria Slack from the Emporium, on Grange Road, also warned that business owners relied on parking bays for accessibility. Ms Slack said: "If we park for a few hours a day to load stock into the shop, that is £3 and £60 a month to park in front of your own shop." Despite parking charges being reinforced and rising in recent years, Joseph Baggaley at Earth Warriors on Skinnergate said his business had not suffered. "After the charges came in last time, I saw a big increase in trade, and I've only ever seen an improvement," he said. Mr Baggaley said an increased turnover of cars would be beneficial as more people would find somewhere to park. He added: "It is unfortunate that the prices are rising, but the council has to raise money. It's a hard situation." The new fares are estimated to generate an additional £500,000 for the council. Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. What are Darlington's new parking fares? Price hike for town centre car parks approved Darlington Borough Council
