What shall we do with the Billingham leviathan?

A symbolic northern battle is raging over Billingham House , once the scene of decisions which reverberated all over the business world. That was when it was the headquarters of ICI, the giant Imperial Chemical Industries created in 1926 by titans such as Sir Alfred Mond. He was so famous that he features in T S Eliot's poetry , and ICI was a flagship of Teesside industry as recently as the 1980s when Sir John Harvey-Jones was chairman. He too became part of the nation's culture via the BBC series Troubleshooters ; but his time in office saw the workforce cut by a third. ICI still employed 29,000 in 2006, the year before the final takeover by Akzo Nobel, but the heroic days in Billingham were gone. Now the former HQ is a gaunt and dangerous shell and its future in dispute between a cast more familiar in the modern north: the local council, a property investment company and a firm of would-be office and flat/loft developers. Hence the High Court in London's deliberations this week under the curious heading of Stockton council, Bizzy B and Python. Bizzy B of Watford (another symbolic place in north-south terms) owns the building, which has been empty since the mid-1990s, but the firm has been accused of delay and dawdle, to such an extent that Stockton council took control of the building last year and was all set to demolish. But the cost of this has risen to £500,000, on top of £400,000 earmarked last year by the now-doomed regional development agency One North East. This makes a £5 million regeneration plan by Python Properties look interesting. Stockton is sceptical of the apparent promise of some really good news for Billingham, because of all the previous delays and the chronic state of Billingham House. But Python has form in the successful conversion of another vast inheritance from the mighty past, the Cargo Fleet offices in Middlesbrough. The High Court has now granted a judicial review but only on condition – at the council's insistence - that it is done 'expeditiously.' This term, not often associated with lawyers, means that we should get a final decision on 10 May. Puking fun Borders culture legend and Northerner writer Alan Sykes reports that he managed to snap up the region's latest best seller at the Baltic on Tyneside: Lydia Leith's Royal Wedding sick bag with its playful pun: throne up. The Cumbrian artist has sold out of her first edition, which Alan has proudly on display at his home near Talkin Tarn, but more are now available in either revolutionary red or true blue.