ON Tuesday evening, on the way home from work in the teeth of a minor gale, we noticed the forlornlooking tables and chairs outside the famed Imperial Express café in Northumberland Street, Darlington.

The café has had to jump through numerous hoops, including getting planning permission, in order to extend the pavement into the street to create the room for the rather smart outside furniture.

It’s a great idea. The trouble is, they have finally got the work done just in time for the weather to turn. Still, it will be nice next year.

New Priestgate

IT took over a year, but Spectator’s glad to see the powers that be have decided to re-surface what must be the most damaged and patched road in County Durham.

It was in August 2009 that we drew attention to the moonlike craters and multiple patchwork repairs that were appearing in Darlington’s worn-out Priestgate, principally caused by the hundreds of buses that thunder up it every day to the stops in Prebend and Tubwell Rows.

Now Priestgate is closed for a week while the road is ripped up and completely relaid. Not before time.

Parking dodge

A parking attendant at Sainsbury’s, Saltburn, shook his head at spotting a yellow jacket belonging to a local council official on the front seat of a car occupying a space for a disabled driver.

He slapped a warning notice on the windscreen saying that a £50 fine was payable if the driver repeated the practice.

“A council official should know better,” he commented. He said a fair number of motorists used the disabled spaces which are nearer to the shop than other spots.

The driver, who didn’t have a disabled drivers’ badge on her windscreen, said she had been to the doctors’ surgery.

She then walked up to talk to the attendant.

A colleague, who witnessed the incident, tells me he doesn’t know the outcome of the little saga. But maybe the driver will not try the same dodge again.