THE man who designed one of the North-East's most famous landmarks has died at the age of 82.

During the 1960s, no drive through Durham City's historic streets could avoid the Victorian-style police booth that controlled traffic.

The booth was designed by city engineer Leslie Ellis - along with the Baths Bridge, which won a Civic Trust Award.

Mr Ellis is also believed to have coined Shakespeare's "winter of discontent", from Richard III, as a political phrase during the last days of James Callaghan's strike-beleaguered Labour Government.

Mr Ellis was born and educated in Middlesbrough and followed his elder brother, Richard, into a career in civil engineering.

While the outbreak of war interrupted his career plans, he continued his studies first in the Admiralty and later as a Royal Navy sub-lieutenant.

Shortly after their wartime wedding, his wife, Betty, whose family owned the Garnett's lemonade and sweet factories in Middlesbrough, joined him on a posting to the Orkneys, where he surveyed and laid out Scapa Flow airstrip.

He moved to Durham in 1951 to become deputy city engineer, later appointed to the top post.

At the time, traffic in the city had to cross the market place and negotiate a network of medieval streets, with often chaotic results.

Mr Ellis' solution was to install closed-circuit television cameras, monitored from his newly-designed police booth, where a police officer controlled all the city's traffic.

The system attracted international interest.

From Durham, he moved to Guildford, Surrey, where he worked for the Department of the Environment.

It was during a Press briefing in 1978 that he warned of an impending "winter of discontent" - a phrase taken up and widely used during the series of strikes leading to the downfall of the then Labour Government.

A family member said of Mr Ellis: "In everything he did, he was an absolute perfectionist. He was intelligent, energetic and resourceful, terrific company and very committed to his family."

Mr Ellis is survived by Betty, daughters Pam and Heather, son John, and seven grandchildren.