A PROPOSED £1bn business park with the potential to create up to 7,000 jobs could be oversubscribed, the millionaire behind the project has revealed.

David Abrahams, who hit the headlines over donations of more than £650,000 he made to the Labour Party using other people’s names, said interest in the Durham Green development, near Bowburn, County Durham, had been higher than expected.

“Everybody is working together to ensure we can get these jobs in as soon as possible,”

he said.

The plans cover hundreds of acres close to the A1(M) and promise 92,000sq metres of business space.

The Northern Echo has learned they are due to go before Durham county councillors later this month. Few objections have been raised.

Mr Abrahams, a Newcastlebased property developer, said: “We’ve got great expectations for the site and we’ve had more interest than we anticipated.

“We need to get those unemployment figures down.

Everyone has been working together. There’s no doubt about it – there’s too much at stake not to. If all the inquiries succeed, then it will be oversubscribed.”

Mr Abrahams said he gave donations to Labour using the names of intermediaries in the North-East, including his secretary and a builder, because he wanted to protect his privacy. A Metropolitan Police investigation cleared him of any wrongdoing and last week the Crown Prosecution Service announced no one would face charges.

Questions were also raised over an earlier version of the Durham Green scheme, which was never built. Police handed the inquiry to the District Auditor, who found no evidence of wrongdoing.

If the revised scheme is approved, work could begin within a year, with the first businesses moving in about a year later.

Mr Abrahams said: “We’re taking it step by step. It’s going to be the biggest of its kind in the area.

“We’ve just heard about all those people losing their jobs at Corus. Those people have got to work somewhere. It’s a question of re-training.”

Mr Abrahams says he will donate any profits from the park to charitable causes he is already involved with.