A HOPELESS romantic has revealed how he enlisted the help of a council's parks department to make a Notting Hill-style proposal to his beloved.

Girlfriend Joanna Harbinson was kept in the dark as 22-year-old Martyn Sutcliffe talked Tynedale District Council in Northumberland into installing a park bench at the couple's favourite courting spot so he could recreate the famous scene where on-screen lovers Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts take inspiration from a plaque on a seat and decide to marry.

Martyn even had a brass plaque fitted to his seat with a smoochy line from the Ronan Keating song, When You Say Nothing At All, the couple's favourite track from the film.

Underneath it says: ''Martyn Sutcliffe asked Joanna Harbinson for her hand in marriage here on the 22nd July 2000.''

When the couple next visited picturesque Hexham, Martyn took his girlfriend to the seat and it was there she said 'yes', amid a flow of tears.

Martyn, from Newcastle-upon- Tyne, described the moment when he played Hugh Grant to her Julia Roberts.

"She couldn't believe it when she saw the seat. Thankfully, she said yes, and she even shed a tear."

Martyn met 19-year-old Joanna, from Jarrow, Tyne and Wear, last May and they plan to marry in 2002.