NEWS management, if Spectator heard it correctly at a committee meeting the other day, seems to be among the ideas taking deeper root at the new-look North Yorkshire County Council these days.

Cynical old Spectator just hopes this does not mean what he thinks it could mean, especially after one of his hacks simply making dutiful enquiries was asked what sort of a story he intended to write about the discovery of asbestos in the grand committee room.

Ways in which the authority might communicate with Joe Public through press releases and other media paraphernalia were chewed over at both the standards committee and the new Hambleton area committee on Monday.

To Spectator's knowledge, however, this has not yet extended to the news - elicited simply and unexpectedly through an informal conversation with a contact - that the main committee room in the oldest part of County Hall has been closed as a precaution because of asbestos in the lagging of the heating units.

On one hand, management of news and media coverage invokes visions of a beefed-up marketing and public relations unit working even harder than before to put the best possible gloss on things while fielding awkward questions from press and public.

On the other hand, Spectator is magnanimous enough to acknowledge that there could be another meaning. On Monday the new Hambleton area committee genuinely seemed ready to use every tool at its disposal, including the council website and possibly a newsletter, to keep the population of 86,509 informed of its activities.

Incidentally, it's not often that Hambleton area committee chairman Coun Bill ('there are no secret meetings here") Barton gets caught out, but it happened on Monday.

The robust farmer from Sessay was vocally claiming to be unaware of any press presence at the crowded committee until clerk Mr Stephen Hague discreetly enlightened him that Spectator's nark was sitting quietly in a sunlit corner. Cheers, Bill.

That prompted Coun John Coulson, of Northallerton, to call for a special press table "to avoid another mistake like that." The D&S Times, incidentally, was the only paper attending the historic meeting.

Shock, horror

Constituents of Mr William Hague will have discovered nothing new from last Sunday's Channel 4 documentary William and Ffion, other than the Conservative party leader is a genial fellow who likes a pint. A pity about the programme's description of North Allerton (sic)