thanks for your feedback guys, i'll take what you've said onboard and brush up on it today then hopefully produce my final piece later tonight
Thanks anyway for your comments, i appreciate it
EDIT:
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/6357/layout23ln3.png < - - final layout, changed the font type & typo in the header, took out the blur on the logo, added some glow to the logo, re-added the stripes to the header, aligned the search box centrally on the right column and added a green footer.
What do you think? Personally i think it looks much better, i added some glow to the logo as i though it just looked a tad too plain with only the drop shadow and i quite like it too.