HAPPY New Year! Welcome to 2007, I hope it s treating you well. Before 2006 becomes a dim and distant memory, I thought we d take a quick look back at the year just gone with our very own Comet Awards. So along with my fellow reporters, I ve put together

HAPPY New Year! Welcome to 2007, I hope it's treating you well.

Before 2006 becomes a dim and distant memory, I thought we'd take a quick look back at the year just gone with our very own Comet Awards.

So along with my fellow reporters, I've put together a little list of some of the highs and lows of the last 12 months.

Biggest Waste of Cash

A tie between Stevenage's yellow g-string canopy and East and North Herts NHS Trust's Investing in Your Health.

The former is a £58,000 piece of yellow canvas strung between buildings in the town centre, which won't even protect shoppers from the elements.

The latter is an extensive consultation which came to the conclusion that what we really really needed was a super hospital in Hatfield.

This idea was given the green light but has now been scrapped and the Trust is setting up yet another consultation, this time into acute services as, apparently, we REALLY, REALLY need to close an A and E department at either Lister Hospital or the QEII in Welwyn GC.

Most Un-neighbourly Neighbour

The anonymous Gosmore mother-of-two who grassed up her neighbours for breaching the hosepipe ban, branding them "immoral".

Oversight of the Year

The lack of a post box outside Letchworth GC's new post office in Station Road. It's coming soon, apparently, but you'd have thought it would have been a priority really.

The Long Time Coming Award, sponsored by Wembley Stadium

Baldock Bypass, which was opened in March, 70 years after the idea was first mooted, although eight months ahead of schedule. Some shopkeepers later complained that the bypass was affecting their trade.

The It Does What It Says On The Tin Award, sponsored by Ronseal

Cinema goers who were so frightened by the horror film Saw III they fainted.

Ambulance crews were called three times in one night to Stevenage Cineworld to look after frightened film fans. Really, it's a horror film and it's called Saw. It's not going to be a fluffy Disney film, is it?

Most Innovative Protest

Members of Ashwell and Morden Rail User Group who posed naked apart from bowler hats, socks, shoes and some strategically placed newspapers in protest at First Capital Connect reducing services to Ashwell and Baldock.

The James Bond Undercover Award

Stevenage Borough Council, which kept residents in The Paddocks "under surveillance" after one complained that dustmen were leaving bin bags stacked up partially blocking pavements. Council staff even visited the area early in the morning to take pictures of the bags, which they said were dumped by residents, not dustmen.