The 2010 archaeological excavation season at the world famous Hadrian’s Wall site of Vindolanda will start (weather permitting) on Easter Sunday.

Applications from volunteers for the 2010 season have been at an unprecedented level. Over 90% of the 550 places available places were booked within just 2 weeks after the applications opened on 1st November 2009 and all were booked by the start of 2010. Excavation volunteers come from all walks of life, from professionals and students with an academic interest in archaeology to those who just want to experience taking part in an excavation. Volunteers travel from all over the UK and Europe and this year a number of individuals are travelling from the USA, Australia and New Zealand to take part.
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The residents of Haltwhistle will soon be able to enjoy a state-of-the-art library which replace the old library currently situated on the high street. The new £2.2 million development will also contain a community centre and is being partly funded by a £1.5 million donation from the Big Lottery Fund. Local residents recently had the chance to look at the final plans for the three-storey development at the current library base now situated, temporarily, in the Clive Brown shop on the high street.
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E Scarth & Sons, one of the oldest building firms in Tynedale, is set to close with the loss of 12 jobs in and around the Haltwhistle area. This is a company which has been around since 1973 and became a prominent part of the Haltwhistle economy offering jobs to many people over the years. The closure of the business seems to have been prompted by a failure to win a number of recent public sector housing maintenance contracts which came up for grabs.
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Support for new Haltwhistle Heritage Centre continues to grow with a recent public meeting in the town attracting significant support. It is hoped that the new heritage centre would be able to house important local documents, artefacts and research material on Haltwhistle and the surrounding area. This will be a major coup for the local council and further strengthen the town’s claim to be the “Centre of Britain”.
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While Haltwhistle chef Daniel Graham may have been beaten to the title of Master Chef after reaching the final, he has been offered a position by Michel Roux at his three Michelin star London restaurant Le Gavroche. It seems as though the seasoned chef from Haltwhistle did is enough in the final to at least catch the eye one of the judges and land himself this plum role.
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While Kilfrost may have moved its base to the Newcastle region, the company still has a significant exposure to Haltwhistle where all of the company’s deicing products are produced and then forwarded to one of three overseas factories to be mixed into the finished product. This is a company which has massive exposure to the likes of the aircraft industry with significant business from countries as far afield as America, China, Holland and Japan.
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After the Northumberland county council finally admitted that the Haltwhistle elderly people’s home at Greenholme is to close it has been revealed that £3.7 million is to be injected into another scheme to build 35 one and two bedroomed “extra care homes” in the centre of the town. The controversial decision to close Greenholme has caused much anger in Haltwhistle with 27 members of staff taking voluntary redundancy out of the 28 who worked at the home.
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Daniel Graham, 27, from Haltwhistle is down to the final three on the BBC programme Masterchef : The Professionals. The show is set to hit the BBC again this week when the final three will be reduced to the winner under the watchful eye of expert judges Michel Rous and Gregg Wallace with the best chef set for a potentially lucrative career in the future.

After studying at Haydon Bridge high school, Daniel Graham moved to Carlisle to complete an NVQ in his chosen profession and has since been employed by a number of hotels and food establishments in and around the area of Northumberland. His rise to fame on Masterchef has not surprised those who were aware of his talents from an early age but it is yet another feather in the cap of the Haltwhistle region and brings more focus upon the area.
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Haltwhistle care home Greenholme would appear to be under threat as more and more of the elderly residents are moved elsewhere. Despite the fact that the there are still a small number of residents in the care home it seems that unofficially Greenholme is on the verge of closure. Indeed, one resident, Maude Thompson, who is 102 years young, is likely to be forced to move despite the fact she has spent the last 14 years of her life in Greenholme and all of her life in Haltwhistle.

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