waveydavey:
Great choice to do your PPL mate and I hope you have as much fun, enjoyment and sleepless nights as I did!
Well, The Northumbria Flying School at Newcastle is a well run establishment now - a fleet of 3 PA28's (2 x 160 & 1 x 140) with another 160 due from it's C of A soon.
Instructor wise you have a new full time chap called Andy who I met for the first time yesterday and he is a really nice guy, JC - who is into his 500th year of instructing - what JC can't teach anybody isn't worth knowing! There are also a couple of good part time instructors generally used at weekends and evenings.
The warriors are £100.00 per hour with instrutor/landing fees added at the end.
Newcastle Airport's landing fees are the stumbling block - £18.00 off peak and £25.00 peak. Peak times at the moment are between 10.00 - 11.00 hrs and 15.00 - 17.00 hrs but this second window widens later in the summer.
Ground school is well run, usually on a Tuesday/Thursday evenings and we also have a suberb social side with our new bar/restaraunt.
Other than that I can't add too much more and it would be unfair to comment on St. Georges at Teeside as I haven't been there.
Do you sacrifice petrol costs for landing fees - ???
I would go with Newcastle but then that's 100% bias!
Good luck mate.