Find out about changes to our services and Christmas opening times on our Festive information page. To find out when your bin will be collected over the festive period, visit Changes to County Durham bin collections at Christmas.

Due to maintenance, the following systems will be unavailable from 11.45am on Tuesday 24 December until 8.00am on Thursday 2 January: our online Council Tax, business rates and housing benefit services, and our welfare assistance form. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

As dawn broke

On D-Day 6 June 1944, the 6th, 8th and 9th Battalions DLI - the same three battalions that had landed in Sicily - waded ashore on Gold Beach as part of the Allied invasion of Normandy.