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Teesside and County Durham stories you might have missed

BBC Kathleen Wilson, wearing a beige, is standing outside a badly overgrown garden in front of a derelict house. She is pointing at the house which has concrete blocks in the windows and doorway. There is a waist-high brick wall between her and the property.BBC
A house on Station Road has been uninhabited for 43 years

A listed garden, a scrapped bus and a new sculpture to commemorate mining heritage.

Here are some stories from Teesside and County Durham you might have missed this week.

Tragic past of home left empty since 1982

The rear of two terraced homes with the left one covered in green mould and bricked up windows. The home on the right is clean and well-maintained.
The Wilson's worry they are getting too old to keep battling for action

A couple who have been living next to an empty home since 1982 say it has been a "absolute nightmare" with teenagers breaking in and structural problems plaguing the building.

Kathleen and Tom Wilson moved into their home on Station Road in Wingate, County Durham, in 1970 and their next door neighbour was a woman in her 50s who was engaged to be married.

Mrs Wilson said the marriage never happened and the woman next door became a real Miss Havisham figure - "there was no electricity she lit the house with candles".

The neighbour was moved to a care home in 1982 and the house has remained empty ever since, slowly becoming more overgrown and unsafe.

On-demand bus service replaced with fixed routes

Dave Charnley/TVCA A blue Tees Flex mini bus with darkened windows. It has the logos of the Tees Valley Combined Authority and bus operator Stagecoach. Tees flex your bus, your way, is written across the left corner of the vehicle.Dave Charnley/TVCA
The bus service will not be renewed after March

An on-demand bus service has been scrapped in favour of two fixed routes after it was branded not good value for money.

Tees Flex has been running across Stockton, Darlington, Hartlepool and East Cleveland since early 2020, with passengers booking a journey through an app before being directed to a pick-up or a drop-off point nearby.

Darlington Borough Council leader Stephen Harker, Labour, said there were times when only one person travelled on it, but Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen, Conservative, backed the service and said it could be improved.

Local authority leaders opted not to extend Tees Flex beyond March 2026.

'Beautiful' inter-war garden gains listed status

A green garden with a variety of plants and flowers growing around a stream with a wooden bridge over it. The sun is shining and the grass is a vibrant green.
The Heagney family bought the property in 1952

An inter-war garden has been granted listed status by Historic England, ensuring it will be protected for generations to come.

Tudor Croft Garden in Guisborough was created in 1934 and is one of just five parks and gardens to be listed in 2025.

Owner Mike Heagney, 81, said the garden was "completely overgrown" when his father Tony Heagney bought it in 1952.

He was delighted by the listed status and said it had been "a magical journey" restoring the garden to its current beauty.

Sculpture keeping coal mining job titles alive

Curtis Bihari/Andrew McKeown On the left is a picture of the mining lamp being installed in Ferryhill with protective orange fencing around it. On the right the lamp is receiving the final touches before being transported to Ferryhill. There is a man in a high-vis vest and black trousers who is on his knees beside the lamp.Curtis Bihari/Andrew McKeown
The miner's lamp is covered in old mining job titles

A mining lamp sculpture has been unveiled celebrating the heritage of a former pit town.

The sculpture, which has been installed at Laurel Road, in Ferryhill, was funded using £20,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and £15,000 from the Neighbourhood Budget secured by former councillors Curtis Bihari and Peter Atkinson.

The lamp commemorates the mining heritage of the town and incorporates the names of mining occupations and terms specific to the Durham Coalfield area. They are engraved around the column of the lamp.

Designer Andrew McKeown said the sculpture would help preserve knowledge of "the people and the culture and the colloquial job names".

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