 The development of the city in the 1960s saw the demolition of part of Grainger Town as a prelude to the modernist rebuilding initiatives of T. Dan Smith, the leader of Newcastle City Council.A corruption scandal was uncovered involving Smith and John Poulson, a property developer from Pontefract, West Yorkshire, and both were imprisoned.Echoes of the scandal were revisited in the late 1990s in the BBC TV mini-series, "Our Friends in the North".