News-City centre venues temporarily close

In view of this we are closing the Gala Theatre and Claypath Library early given their location in the city centre.

We'd like to apologise to anyone who had tickets for tonight's films screenings at Gala. The box office is currently contacting ticketholders.

A council spokesperson said: "Our thoughts have been very firmly with the victims of the Southport attack last week and everyone affected by it. As with people up and down the country, we have been shocked and saddened at the disorder that has occurred, supposedly in response to the attack, including in our great region in recent days.

"Regrettably we have seen some disorder in County Durham already and we are aware of posts on social media on potential further activity. We are sharing any information we see with Durham Constabulary and fully support police both regionally and nationally in their efforts to maintain public safety.

"The people of the North East and County Durham have always prided themselves on living in friendly, welcoming and inclusive communities; and we therefore echo the calls made elsewhere for unity and not division in response to the events in Southport."

Our CCTV teams are drafting in extra staff to support police and our clean and green team is on standby should it be needed.