Tweet
Location, location, location comes back to Teesside and finds how nice it is after all
Middlesbough is feeling a lot more cheerful this morning after the TV programme Location, Location, Location finally paid a return visit and said something nice about the town.
The Channel 4 show and its property specialist Kirstie Allsopp toured the hinterland four years after creating a storm with claims that Middlesbrough was the worst place to live in Britain. With Ray Mallon in charge as elected mayor, that wasn't going to go unchallenged.
He announced a boycott of Channel 4 and submitted a protest to Ofcom, the TV watchdog, including footage taken of wrecked houses in South Bank which isn't part of Middlesbrough. The area's many attractions, including the beautiful little 'Yorkshire Matterhorn' of Roseberry Topping, didn't get a look-in.
Mallon lost the case, getting a re-run of needling headlines in 2009 for his pains, but on legal grounds which he understandably described as 'lukewarm.' Channel 4 was allowed to refuse a request from Middlesbrough council to see research data because that might imperil journalistic immunity; and Ofcom's central reason for clearing the show was that it was not a documentary but entertainment.
Thus references to 90 percent of Middlesbrough not taking exercise – plain wrong – slipped through as ironic. But the latest instalment has put things to rights. Its cameras didn't need words to show the loveliness of the Cleveland escarpment, the dramatic coastline curving away towards Redcar and Saltburn-by-Sea and the charm of Yarm.
These were the overlaid by comments designed to make Mallon (and the Northerner) feel warm inside, such as: "The North-east has it all and it's easy to see why our buyers want a little piece of it all to themselves." To ice the cake, or add extra cheese to the Parmo, Allsopp told the Middlesbrough Gazette of her relief that best and worst polls had been dropped from Location, Location,Location.
Paul Jenkins, from Chadwicks restaurant in Maltby where she had supper, got the same message and passes it on to the Gazette:
Kirsty was as complimentary about the area off camera as she was on. She said she would never do a Best and Worst show again because it didn't reflect her own personal opinion of the area.
She said she thinks the village is fantastic and I think that came across on the programme. It was a great advert for the region.
She said she thinks the village is fantastic and I think that came across on the programme. It was a great advert for the region.
Martin Wainwright
guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
More...
Comment