HEALTH Secretary Alan Milburn has praised a community coalition against crime that helped restore transport to a vandal-hit estate.

The evening bus service to Darlington's Skerne Park estate had been withdrawn by bus company Arriva North-East following incidents of vandalism and assaults in recent months.

The move to suspend services after 6pm followed an alleged assault on a bus driver and two passengers.

Bus managers had also heard reports of stones and bricks being thrown at vehicles and a door being pulled off another bus.

Arriva agreed to restore services after a public meeting to discuss the vandalism issue at the weekend.

Mr Milburn said: "Residents, local councillors and others spent a lot of time organising Saturday's meeting. I am pleased it went so well and that the result is the restoration of an important local service.

"It proves that the only way to get problems like this sorted out is for the police, the council and the residents to work closely together.

"The challenge now is prevention. We need to make sure that Skerne Park residents don't have to put up with this sort of anti-social, frightening behaviour in the future."

Residents had spoken of their fears about large gangs of youths, some as young as six or seven, who were throwing missiles at the buses, putting drivers and bus customers at risk.

One resident at Saturday's meeting claimed that up to 150 youngsters had been involved in causing damage.

She said: "They have been throwing bricks at buses, as well as throwing eggs at drivers and passengers."

Police say the situation is under control and the scale of the problem is not as bad as has been claimed.

But Mr Milburn said: "Darlington Police know how concerned I am about this type of incident and that I am one hundred per cent behind the residents in their determination to see it stopped."