ContiTech Beattie, the Ashington and Aberdeen-based market leader in hose technology for the oil and gas industry, has won a national award.

Winning the financial management prize at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Manufacturing Excellence Awards 2009 follows success at last year's ceremony and a number of regional accolades.

ContiTech Beattie was shortlisted for five awards and listed as finalist in three, after a visit from external assessors last May and a presentation in London to a panel of seven judges, all experts in manufacturing.

Families in Northumberland are being invited to have their say on policing in their area at a special meeting.

A Police and Community Together meeting will be held for people living in Ashington, Ellington, Linton, Lynemouth and Newbiggin.

The session is designed to give residents a chance to meet their Neighbourhood Policing Teams and discuss any problems they have in their area.

With both Swalwell and Shotley Bridge stalled by the weather, a new kid appeared on the Wellstream NTSL championship chasing block in the shape of Sacriston.

The games at Ryton, where Swalwell were due, Percy Main, who were entertaining Bridge, and Ashington, where Morpeth were the visitors, all succumbed to the previous day's downpours which left the grounds unfit for any play.

Ashington's game with Leadgate the previous week had also been rained off.

This is first picture of murder victim Lee Matthewson. The 21-year-old was stabbed to death during a disturbance on Bolam Road, in Ashington, on Monday.

Emergency services were called to the street during the early hours of the morning, following reports of an altercation.

Mr Matthewson was taken to Wansbeck District Hospital, but he was pronounced dead at around 5.45am.

Newcastle United Foundation has teamed up with Ashington High School Sports College to provide sixth-form pupils with essential work experience.

As part of a new initiative to develop the football coaches of the future, six A-level students at the High School are being given a unique opportunity to work alongside senior coaching staff at the Foundation.

The six students, all keen to carve a career in football or sports development, will each undertake 15 hours of work experience on the Foundation's weekly and holiday coaching programmes within Northumberland.

Teenager Chris Rogers was left devastated by the death of his beloved grandparents to cancer, but he is now throwing himself into fundraising in their memory. Alexandra McKenzie spoke to him.

Pick up a paper and stories of unruly teens causing havoc are the norm. But not in the case of young Chris Rogers, a truly inspiring Ashington teenager with a big heart.
Chris, 14, lives with his parents Jennifer and Robert. His grandmother Barbara Scott, Jennifer's mother, passed away six years ago after suffering from non Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Tragically Alan Rogers, Chris' grandfather on his Dad's side, died three years later after a battle with bowel cancer.

Whitehall last night blocked £200m plans to rebuild North East colleges.

A budget blunder by the Learning and Skills Council left nearly 200 further education bases sweating on expansion plans.

And yesterday the Government announced only 13 of them would be given the money they had been promised before the LSC realised it did not have enough to pay the bill.

The decision left Northumberland and South Tyneside Colleges counting a £200m cost, with ambitious expansion plans now put on the back burner for at least two years.

A desperate family fear their three businesses could be sunk by the development of a £25m superstore next door.

Bob Brown, 64, pictured, his wife Margaret, 62, and son Steve, 42, say there is a real risk they will be forced to close down because of the construction of the massive new Asda supermarket on the former Portland Park football ground in Ashington.

They claim trade has plummeted by between 50% and 80% since March, when the building site swallowed up 280 parking spaces opposite their premises in Lintonville Terrace, which were used by customers.

A school which is closing in a £48m education shake-up will be commemorated by a piece of artwork which was unveiled yesterday.

The 8ft stainless steel sculpture, which resembles a plant seed head with eight pods holding time capsules containing memorabilia, will be a memorial to Seaton Hirst Middle School, Ashington.

It is one of 10 schools which will close over the next two years as part of the creation of the all-age Hirst Academy, which will be based at five separate sites in Ashington, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea and Lynemouth and open in September.

Transport officials in Northumberland are hoping to meet regional partners and Network Rail soon in a bid to make progress on long-awaited plans to restore passenger train services on an axed line.

The meeting is being sought to review work carried out to date on the planned reopening of the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne railway line, and try to shunt the scheme out of the sidings.

The latest moves were revealed yesterday after a new report by the influential Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) included the ABT scheme in a list of 14 railway lines it wants to see opened to passenger trains.