A ROW has blown up over claims that land belonging to a bankrupt former millionaire has been sold to developers by mistake.

Developers Abstract Integrated Health Care (AIHC) have threatened to sue former millionaire Ted Winter for holding up work on a multi-million pound doctors' surgery.

But Mr Winter insists his land has been encroached upon.

The dispute centres on a small site on Balaclava Street, in Stockton town centre.

Mr Winter, 67, said that the land was wrongly sold by Stockton Borough Council to AIHC.

However, the council has insisted the land belonged to them.

Now AIHC, which is building the doctors' surgery in neighbouring Alma Street, has written to Mr Winter threatening to sue for costs for delays to the work.

AIHC said the land in Balaclava Street was due to be used as a base for contractors before being turned into a car park.

Mr Winter said: "I've employed a commercial quantity surveyor who has documents going back to 1869, 1940 and 1979 which clearly show that the land is mine. In fact, if I hadn't stopped them, they would have taken even more of my land."

Bernard Hartus, a quantity surveyor, who is working for the executor of Mr Winter's land, said it appeared that the land was Mr Winter's and he would be in negotiations with solicitors.

Mark Glatman, chief executive of AIHC, said that the whole development had been slowed down because the dispute which had needlessly dragged on.

He confirmed the company was seeking costs for the delay.

A spokesman for Stockton Borough Council said: "We have had a meeting with Mr Winter's surveyor and there's no evidence to suggest there has been an encroachment on to his land. We are investigating this matter further."

Mr Winter, a former Rolls Royce owner, has been locked in legal wrangles since the Queen's Hotel, which he owned, was destroyed in a fire in 1980.

It left him with a £120,000 capital gains tax debt and led to him going bankrupt.