How the 'Vera effect' boosted the North East's image and brought visitors flocking

The soaring popularity of Vera has long been credited for boosting local tourism.

The series of books by Ann Cleeves - who has just published a new one called The Dark Wives - and the long-running TV crime drama which it inspired have brought visitors flocking to the North East. What's been dubbed 'the Vera effect' has attracted legions of fans keen to see the detective's stamping ground for themselves.

The Whitley Bay author, an international best-seller whose awards include the CWA Diamond Dagger which is the highest accolade in crime writing, draws from the area she knows so well for her Northumberland-set series and the long-running ITV drama, whose recently-made final series has yet to air, has also made the most of the North East backdrop over the years. Vera has been cracking cases all over the place, from the beautiful northern wilds to the atmospheric coast and the buzzing city hub.

• Read more: Ann Cleeves reveals what's next for Vera

• Get all the latest North East updates with our free What’s On newsletter

It's no surprise that viewers have been seduced by what they have seen on screen or that Vera location tours have sprung up, taking in the likes of Holy Island and North Shields Fish Quay. Ann's novels have been translated into more than 20 languages and they and the TV series are enjoyed worldwide so the region's attractions have been shared far and wide.

Ann herself has been recognised in the street by passing Vera fans in Whitley Bay who happened to be on a location-spotting visit to the region from Birmingham. And recently she met a Vera 'super-fan' from Australia who - upon hearing the news that the TV series starring Brenda Blethyn is coming to an end - flew over in the hope of watching some of the last series being filmed.

To her delight the fan, 70-year-old Christine Bennett, ended up meeting both Ann and Brenda while she also took two location tours, covering a wide area of the region and seeing scenery which she said "blew me away". Ann, who has written a total of 37 novels, says of her creation: "It's really big in Australia.

"I think the TV show is so popular there and readers and viewers love it." With the ITV drama featuring Vera covering more and more of the region over the years, with murder cases expanding well beyond Northumberland, the location tours have open up a vast stretch of the region to visitors, including Newcastle itself which is the subject of a half-day tour around filming spots.

Ann is delighted that Vera has inspired people to come to the North East. "I love how people come to do Vera tours," she says and she is proud too.

She tells how she also has been informed that professionals such as some doctors and dentists have even moved here after seeing what the region has to offer and realising it is "not just terraced streets but beautiful country and beaches". The Vera locations shown on TV prove a far cry from the region's portrayal in some TV series of old, such as "When The Boat Comes In and The Likely Lads".

As for her own home town, Ann loves it. Whitley Bay, which has been featured several times in the series, is a bustling hub with coffee shops, bakeries and craft shops, she says, and has become a destination in its own right, with tourists choosing to stay there rather than base themselves in Newcastle and travel in.

"It's really busy at weekends; it's thriving." A well-known advocate for libraries, Ann is also a huge fan - and supporter - of Forum Books' shop The Bound which she can reach from her home easily, as she can the beach, and she adds: "I've lived here a long time; I know everybody and it's a very friendly street."

Besides featuring the areas she knows as settings for her stories, she says: "I make some things up as well". One of them is a landmark in new book The Dark Wives.

Her 11th book in the series, published this week by Pan Macmillan, begins with the finding of a body of a care home worker and, as Vera investigates the death as well as the case of a missing teenager, a second body is then discovered near some standing stones called Three Dark Wives - a landmark which Ann thought up.

Otherwise she finds a wealth of inspiration throughout the North East. "It has a wide palette of different backgrounds: coastal towns, wild uplands of north Northumberland, beaches, those areas of post-industrial landscapes - I'm very interested in where the pit villages used to be," she says. "It has everything I want to write about."