TONY Blair performed the honours when a multi-million pound centre for space-age technology was formally handed over to its new tenant last Friday.

The Prime Minister used a swipe card, above, to symbolise the opening of a new era when the keys of the NetPark Research Institute, the first building to be completed on a science park at Sedgefield, were handed to the University of Durham. The building will house the university's centre for astronomical instrumentation, which will develop the next generation of space-based telescopes.