Health managers have suspended plans to shut a community hospital after it emerged that they might not own the building.

County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is considering closing down South Moor Community Hospital near Stanley, and selling off the land for housing.

But residents fighting to save the hospital believe the NHS does not own the site, saying it was left to them by the miners who built it.

Campaigner Garry Reed said: "The trust claims the land is theirs, but have not got the deeds to the land. They have tried to close this site four times and have always failed in the past."

The protestors say there is also a covenant on the deeds that states the site can only be used for a hospital, and decrees that the land cannot be sold for profit or gain.

Publicly, the trust is saying it is confident that it does own the building. But privately, officials have admitted they cannot find the deeds to the land, fuelling speculation that it is not NHS property.

Health chiefs have launched an internal investigation to find out who does own the land, and who has the deeds.

The issue of ownership emerged at a meeting in Craghead, near Stanley, over the building of a multi-purpose health centre planned for Stanley town centre.

Residents are being consulted over the closure of the South Moor hospital, with all services to be transferred to the new centre.

In 1992, plans to close the hospital were shelved after a huge protest led by the late former Durham county councillor, Len James.

Holmside and South Moor Miners' Welfare Fund Hospital opened in 1927. It cost £29,000 and was built on land gifted by the South Moor Coal Company.

The cash was raised through the Mining Act of 1920, where the Government charged coal merchants a penny on every tonne extracted and the money was spent on bettering mining communities.

A penny was also taken off every miners' ticket, to pay for the wages of the hospital staff.

Originally the land and building was left in trust to the people of the Stanley area. It was incorporated into the NHS in 1948, but it remains unclear whether the deeds to the land were also passed on.

A spokesman for the acute hospitals NHS trust said: "The possibility of a restrictive covenant placed on the South Moor Community Hospital site has been raised with the Trust - we are currently looking into this. The most important consideration is to make sure that the people of Stanley receive twenty-first century care in twenty-first century facilities."