A DECADE of schemes designed to encourage green transport appears to have had no discernible impact on levels of ever-increasing commuting by car in the North-East, according to a report.

A study by the University of Durham has concluded that the distance people are travelling has risen, the use of private cars to drive to work has continued to rise, the use of public transport has fallen, and the proportion of people cycling to work remains negligible - putting ever greater pressure on the region's roads.

The report, which was commissioned by the North-East Regional Information Partnership, on behalf of a number of bodies, details the extent to which the North-East has moved away from its industrial past in which employees lived next door to the mines, shipyards, steelworks and factories where they worked, and has turned instead into a region of commuters.

The study, based on 2001 Census data, reveals that 69 per cent of the region's workforce now travel more than 2kms to work every day and virtually half travel more than 5kms.

The trend is most marked in Chester-le-Street, where 70 per cent of the employed population - mostly white collar workers - leave the district every day to work elsewhere.

However, more than a third of workers in County Durham and the Tees Valley travel to work outside the district they live in.

The vast majority of them - 70 per cent, up five per cent on 1991 - do so by private car, putting an immense pressure on the region's transport network at rush hour.

Malcolm Bowes, of the North-East Assembly, one of the partners that commissioned the report, said it dem-onstrated a need to further improve public transport to get commuters off the roads.