YOUNGSTERS have been praised for their initiative after they banded together to complete a colourful mural on a community's underpass.

Teenagers in the villages of High Handenhold and West Pelton, near Chester-le-Street, raised nearly £3,000 to fund the mural and now are now working at setting up a youth club.

They have attracted a further £2,000 in funds to form an angling club and are now seeking cash for the youth club.

Karen Fenton, area development youth worker at the Chester-le-Street Youth Centre, said: "They have done amazingly well. They have shown their initiative and come up with their own ideas."

Ms Fenton and fellow project worker Sue Leslie, who both work for Durham County Council, were approached by the West Pelton and High Handenhold Residents' Association last October to consult with the young people.

She said: "The community recognised that there wasn't anything in the area for young people to do, not even in nearby villages. We did a week's detached work and spoke to children on the street, inviting them to a meeting.

"The main thing they wanted was a youth club and they wanted to raise funds to do projects of their own. One of the projects was the graffiti mural project.

"We showed them how to apply for funds through the Youth Opportunities Fund and they managed to secure nearly £3,000 for the project."

The youths hired mural artist Paul Richardson, of the Iron Elephant, to paint the mural at the Greens Bank Subway, West Pelton. They started the work on Saturday and completed it a few days later.

The one side of the mural celebrates cultural and gender differences between people, as well as those with various disabilities.

The other side of the underpass depicts a lake with people fishing around it - a reference to their project to set up a fishing lake.

The young people were each able to include their identifying tag in the work.

The county council is arranging for Nordic Pioneer Ltd to apply an anti-graffiti coating to the mural.