THE founding chairman of regional development agency One NorthEast is to receive an honorary degree from Durham University.

Dr John Bridge is one of three people who will get the honour from Vice-Chancellor Sir Kenneth Calman next month.

Dr Bridge, who will get an honorary degree in Civil Law, is an economist who has worked in the public, private and academic sectors for 35 years.

He is chairman of Endeavour SCH PLC, a health Private Finance Initiative consortium, and chaired the regional development agency until December last year.

He is a visiting professor at Durham Business School and Newcastle Business School.

David Crookes will receive an honorary Master of Music degree.

He has been secretary of the Durham Choral Society since 1963, a singer with Durham County Opera Group, North Yorkshire Chorus and St Ignatius Singers, Sunderland, and singer and administrator of the Palatine Opera Group.

He has been secretary and, since 2002, chairman of the North-Eastern committee of the National Federation of Music Societies.

An honorary Doctorate of Science will be given to Sir John Pattison, who began his academic training at Barnard Castle School in County Durham.

From 1995 until 1999 he was chairman of the Government's advisory committee on BSE and CJD and in 1996 broke the news about the first human cases of variant CJD.