A COMMUNITY partnership has welcomed three new members to its board.

Hexham Community Partnership has appointed Lowri Potts and Neil Wilkinson as directors and Roger Hancock, a director of the town’s Forum Cinema, has been co-opted to the board to strengthen the relationship between the two organisations.

Mrs Potts has a background in television production and journalism, and moved back to Hexham from Glasgow with her husband in 2017.

Mr Wilkinson is a chartered town planner, and currently a planning, regeneration and environment manager at Gateshead Council.

He has lived and worked in Tynedale for 30 years and he moved to Hexham with his partner five years ago.

A relative newcomer to Hexham having retired to the town three years ago, Mr Hancock was a solicitor in the South-West before moving gradually further north and east with a new career in the legal IT industry.

He has been a director of the town’s Forum Cinema for the past two years.

Peter Rodger, the partnership’s chairman, said: “Once again, I have been surprised and delighted at the calibre of people keen to take on a volunteer role at the partnership.

“These are exciting times for Hexham, with so much going on around the town and work about to start on a number of major developments, not to mention the news that the town is in line for multi-million pound government funding to create a new heritage Action Zone.”

“Lowri and Neil have valuable skills that complement those of the other directors, and having Roger involved will enable us to work more closely with the Forum Cinema, just one of our precious local assets that led to Hexham recently being voted the happiest place to live in the UK.”