IT’S 8.15 on a lovely April morning. At Bishop Auckland railway station, otherwise unmanned, a chap with an identity tag around his neck offers the hope that departing passengers will have a nice day.

If it’s what folk call a charm offensive, the gesture seems altogether appropriate. Bishop Auckland – for so long supposed an economic Ugly Sister – appears to have found its Prince Charming.

Long in decline, subject of endless Hear All Sides hand wringing, the County Durham market town is imaginatively and adventurously being reborn.

Bishop is going to the ball.

THOUGH it’s familiar enough territory, there’s a particular reason for being here. The column two weeks ago reported on a visit to Bishop Auckland by former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore – Lord Snooty to Private Eye readers – during which he’d been much taken by Auckland Castle and by the welcome but was dismayed to discover that, outside his Market Place hotel bedroom, the town’s Saturday nightlife shrieked ceaselessly until 4am.

Rob Yorke, prominent Durham County councillor and entrepreneurial local industrialist, emailed suggesting something a little more positive.

At the southern end of the town, he said, once-derelict land was being transformed into a vibrant retail and leisure complex – pumpkin into golden coach, perhaps. “A sparkling modern metropolis,” said Rob.

At the northern end, plans have been unveiled for a £100m historical leisure park, for major development at Auckland Castle and the surrounding Bishops’ Park and for a transformation of the Market Place which will include an international art gallery and a new hotel.

“I expect it’ll have soundproof windows,” said Rob.

He’s a Bishop boy, raised on the Woodhouse Close council estate, gave up his pre-school milk round in 1987, two days before starting a five-year apprenticeship at Teescraft, the fast-accelerating car components company of which he’s now managing director.

“I always thought that Bishop was a good place, but that we could do more and do better,” he says. On November 5, 1997 he joined the Labour Party; in 2005 became a Wear Valley district councillor and four years later was elected to the county.

“I wanted to work as a partnership. You can change a hell of a lot by working together on things. The population’s growing for the first time in years and the rate of employment is rising, plus there are plans for lots of new housing.

“Bishop Auckland has a tremendous past, some great role models, but this is the most exciting time in its history.”

As engaging and as energetic as he is, however, Coun Yorke is but the Lord Chamberlain – the Dandini, but by no means the desperate Dandini – to the real Prince Charming.

That’s the no-less charismatic Jonathan Ruffer, the Stokesleyborn investment banker, philanthropist and visionary who, having saved Auckland Castle’s renowned Zurburan paintings for the town, came up with a masterpiece of his own.

The north end regeneration is driven by the Auckland Castle Trust, which he formed. He and his wife Jane now have a home in one of the castle lodges, just outside the formal arch. In the past, Mr Ruffer is said to observe, the arch might as well have carried a notice proclaiming “Snobs only beyond this point”.

Rob Yorke accepts that that was the perception, that he has a point. In the future, he says, there’ll be something for everyone.

A spectacular “Night show” is expected to begin in the castle grounds in 2016, walled and formal gardens to follow, the theme park to open on a 115- acres beneath the 11 impressive arches of the old Newton Cap railway viaduct four years later – 2020 vision, and by 2024 around 300 full-time jobs.

Rob finishes his breakfast coffee. “Without Jonathan Ruffer there’s no doubt we’d have struggled in the north of the town,” he says. “Jonathan’s a role model for philanthropy.

Having him is like Santa Claus coming 365 days a year.”

WE’RE in Starbucks, on the southern development. Already there’s a Sainsbury’s, a Tesco, several fast food places – Macdonalds have had to open a second drive-through lane, a sort of burger dual carriageway – a pub and Bishop Auckland’s smart new football ground.

A six-screen cinema and retail development had been approved the week previously, a T K Maxx the day before. Business rates from the site already bring in £2.5m a year.

Chelsie, the Starbucks manager, talks of fast forward footfall, of a growing number of “transactions.”

It’s also the meeting place for a couple of church groups, a knitting circle and the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

“Yesterday we even had a German couple who were staying in Bishop Auckland. They loved it. Who’d have thought that even five years back?”

Rob’s gazing out of the window towards the new cinema site. “Not so long ago all this was derelict, an eyesore.

Just look at it all now. Wow.”

IT’S Thursday morning and we’ve moved on to the Market Place. Castle and park are at one end, Newgate Street – once south-west Durham’s golden mile – at the other.

Once, too – Thursdays and Saturdays – myriad market traders would indefatigably have set up stall. Now there are none.

Rob blames changing times and changing tastes for Newgate Street’s gallows rattle. “These shops were built in the horse and cart era. In shape and size they’re no longer what people want. It’s like a hospital, isn’t it.

If you’re bad, you don’t just expect to be treated at the end of the street. You want somewhere that specialises. People have changed. We have to give them what they expect, we can’t afford to live in the past.”

Newgate Street, he believes, will become a vibrant base for family and “boutique-style”

shops as part of the tourist-led economy at the north end.

He enthuses over everything, even the oak trees in the park – “some of them more than 200 years old”. Formal estimates put visitor numbers at 800,000 annually. Rob’s sure they can do it. “It’s about having the vision, isn’t it?”

BACK at Teescraft, Bishop’s biggest employer, we’re joined by former MP Derek Foster – now Baron Foster of Bishop Auckland in the County of Durham and, at 76, still active in the Lords.

A new, 42,000sq ft factory, nears completion. The South Durham Enterprise Agency, of which Rob is chairman, has its offices nearby. “I knew him when he had nowt,”says Lord Foster, cheerfully.

Though he lives in Washington, he spends much time in his former constituency.

“When I retired as MP I was terribly upset because we’d put so much time and effort into getting Bishop moving and we still didn’t know if it was going to work.

“I didn’t know if anyone was going to pick up the baton, but Rob and his colleagues have been marvellous. He does ten times more than I did and his ability to ride several horses at once is really impressive.

“There were so many agencies which seemed to be opposed to what was happening, people were saying that nothing would ever come of it.

“The majority of people were doubting Thomases because they were used to things not succeeding.

Bishop Auckland is proving everybody wrong.”

It’s getting on lunchtime by the time we head our separate ways. Still the sun shines. Nice day? Looks set fair, doesn’t it?