newcastlecentric

- A last-ditch attempt to save four South Tyneside’s primary schools from the axe looks to have failed. Labour councillors are being recommended to close St Bede’s RC Primary in Jarrow and Boldon C of E School, and merge Bedewell Primary and Lukes Lane Community schools on Hebburn Comprehensive School’s site. [Shields Gazette] Read full story

You may be a proud BNP supporter or you may prefer to keep it a secret. After all, you might be an advisor to the council or a policeman, or in a similarly sensitive role.

Either way, everyone knows your political leanings now; a list of nearly 13,000 BNP supporters, activists and contacts has been leaked online by an anonymous source.

Although the story is only just breaking in the mainstream media the list appeared on Blogger last night, though its validity was not then known. Statements released by officials on behalf of the right-wing party this morning have confirmed its authenticity.

The list includes the names, address and other personal information of activists, supporters and recent contacts - individuals who are not supporters of the BNP, but have had correspondence with the party.

While the list has now been removed from the blog it was published on, newcastlecentric.com received a copy last night. So how does Newcastle, Sunderland and the rest of Tyne & Wear fare?

On the list are around 300 names and addresses of contacts with Tyne & Wear postcodes. In several instances, members as young as 16-years-old are registered where families have party membership. Also according to the list, there are two households in Fenham and Gateshead where five BNP members are registered as living at the same address.

On the BNP website, leader Nick Griffin claims the list to be outdated and that some people “appeared to have had their names maliciously added by whoever was responsible for the blog posting.”

Tornado, the first new main line steam locomotive to be built in Britain for almost 50 years, hauled her final test train on the Network Rail main line from York to Newcastle last night. Read full story

- A man has appeared in court charged with the murders of Zhen Xing Yang and Xi Zhou at their flat in Newcastle in August. Read full story

- Trying to contact the dead is difficult enough when you have voodoo and dark magic on your side. So quite how marketeers think they’ll manage to get in touch with Newcastle’s deceased is unclear. Read full story

If you’ve tried to buy a house in Saltwell or Bensham over the past few years, you may have been intimidated by protest posters in windows and talk of banks refusing to give mortgages on properties. Read full story

If there was an award for “best use of a knackered old swimming pool”, Climb Newcastle would have it in the bag. But there isn’t, so they haven’t. What they do have is Newcastle’s first dedicated climbing centre, and that sounds far more fun, doesn’t it? Read full story