As there's nothing in it about geologists

The BBC has been accused of ‘wasting money’ on its hit sitcom Hebburn – because it doesn’t show the titular Tyneside town in a good light.

Local Labour councillor John McCabe seemed to have confused the requirements of a comedy with those of a tourist information film, complaining: ‘It's not portraying Hebburn as the town that I know, that I live in and I serve in.

‘It shows the town in the wrong way. We don't need people walking around in vests, I'd rather show my town with links to people like Arthur Holmes.’

Holmes, who died in 1965, was a pioneer of geochronology who performed the first uranium-lead radiometric dating.

McCabe said he had to ‘put himself through’ watching the series, and said: ‘For me it's been a complete waste of three and a half hours of my time and it's a waste of taxpayers' money and licence fee payers money.’

However stand-up Jason Cook, who created the series, said he had ‘the best interests of Hebburn at heart’.

He told BBC News: ‘I could have called it anything and based it anywhere but I wanted to do something about my home town... I'm proud of where I've come from.

‘It's got its faults but so does everywhere else and towards the end of the series people were so in love with it.’

BBC Two has just commissioned a second series of the show.

Published: 16 Jan 2013