A £12m plan to develop a popular Teesside tourist attraction is to be revealed.

Details of the project to refurbish Preston Hall Museum and Park, in Eaglescliffe, will be announced in the coming weeks.

But The Northern Echo understands contact has already been made with the Government and the Heritage Lottery Fund in an attempt to secure funding.

Council officers also hope to win European Union fundingto develop the park, which is used by thousands of visitors each year. The authority has been working on a feasibility study on how to develop the park and museum for more than a year.

Kevin McAuley, head of leisure at Stockton Borough Council, said: "There are some exciting proposals but we can't reveal specifics at this stage. We are meeting our consultants in the coming days.

"The theme of our study is enhancing what is already there and developing exciting ideas.

"We think the park is the most well-used visitor attraction on Teesside with up to a million visitors a year, so it is a very exciting project which would cost more than £12m."

One idea already proposed includes creating a Victorian-style schoolroom in the museum. The Norton Heritage group has suggested the idea in writing to the council but has not yet received a reply.

Preston Hall Museum and Park opened in 1953, six years after the old Stockton Corporation took it over. It had previously been owned by the Eden family, of Windlestone, for 100 years.

The park, which has free admission, attracts most visitors but the museum, which has a miniature railway, a historical period street and art and armoury displays, still attracts 70,000 fee-paying visitors each year.

The world's first passenger railway line passed through the grounds but the line was later altered. The subsequently built station was wrongly named Eaglescliffe in an Act of Parliament, instead of after the nearby village of Egglescliffe. The name Eaglescliffe is still used.