OF course, it would nice to return to the good old days when the Northern Rock Foundation was the North-East’s biggest charity, handing out £225m to good causes over 20 years.

But the harsh reality is that Northern Rock went bust and the foundation went with it. The banking world underwent a fundamental change and, realistically, the full charitable force of the foundation was never going to be replaced.

It is sad that such a huge gap was left in the funding of the region’s good causes but the Northern Rock crash made that inevitable and we have to be realistic.

Virgin Money, which bought Northern Rock, announced a £1m contribution to its own foundation last September and that was followed in December by Chancellor George Osborne promising that the foundation would also receive £4m worth in fines from errant banks. Then, today, Virgin pledged another £3m by 2019, bringing the total to £8m.

It is still a long way short of where we were but it is £8m more than we might have had – and it is enough to make a difference.

In the main, the announcement has been welcomed by charities and business organisations in the region but the transition, from a well-established North-East institution to new owners operating in a very different financial environment, was never going to escape controversy.

North Durham MP Kevan Jones has described the size of the Virgin Money Foundation pot as “paltry”.

Generous, paltry or somewhere between the two, the fact is that there is an £8m fund up for grabs and the aim must be to keep as much of it as possible here in the North-East.

The Northern Rock Foundation made an outstanding contribution to North-East life but that time has passed. We must now make the most of a smaller but still tasty cake.