WHEN Derek Foster announced last month that he was stepping down as Bishop Auckland's MP, he was at least reassured that he was leaving his constituency in better shape than when he arrived.

With more people in work than ever and initiatives under way to tackle major issues such as poverty, crime, health, education and economic regeneration, the 600 square miles of County Durham he has represented for 26 years is a brighter place.

Spread between open tracts of moorland to the south and west and the bustling business centres of the east, the constituency is one of the country's most diverse.

It crosses three local council areas - all of Teesdale District, and parts of Wear Valley District and Sedgefield Borough.

Tranquil Teesdale, the rural half, is still a strong agricultural area despite the foot-and-mouth crisis, but with enterprising development teams at work raising hopes of new prosperity.

One of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, Glaxo SmithKline, has been Barnard Castle's leading employer for as long as workers can remember while energetic Teesdale Marketing is creating training and job opportunities for the dale's residents.

Other major multinationals, most recently Rothmans and Black and Decker, have pulled jobs from places like Spennymoor, but new Net Parks are offering alternatives to traditional engineering and manufacturing work.

Former mining villages around the constituency have long since shed the stigma of 1960s category D and are welcoming new homes while major housing developments are springing up around the urban centres of Bishop Auckland, Spennymoor and Shildon.

Twenty years after its wagon works closed, Shildon is becoming a tourist town through the opening of a major attraction Locomotion: The National Railway Museum.

The new MP will want to encourage neighbouring Bishop Auckland to build on its own proud heritage at the Bishop of Durham's home Auckland Castle, through its links with amateur football and comic duo Laurel and Hardy.

As they meet with residents, the Bishop Auckland hopefuls are already learning from complaints about poor roads and sparse public transport that getting from A to B is an important concern.

The traditional town centres of Bishop Auckland, Spennymoor and Shildon are all in different ways undergoing major transformations, with traders demanding support to help them compete with the growth of retail parks.

Three years after it opened, changes in some services at the £67m Bishop Auckland General Hospital is still a major bone of contention.