A NORTH-EAST council is preparing to spend £130,000 on repairing road bridges over railway lines in its area.

Darlington Borough Council is proposing to spend the money on eight bridges which have been assessed by experts.

Four of the bridges in the borough, all owned by Railtrack, are considered to be in urgent need of repair while only one of the council's bridges has been assessed to be of low risk.

Another bridge checked at Teesside Airport was said to need no work to improve safety.

The assessments were carried out after the Selby rail disaster. Ten people died at Great Heck when a Land Rover careered off the M62 onto the East Coast Main Line and into the path of a Newcastle-to-London train.

The Northern Echo launched a campaign following the tragedy to get all bridges checked and repaired.

Now, Darlington council has pledged to fund the repairs, despite not owning the bridges, in a bid to get safety up to standard as soon as possible.

John Buxton, the council's director of development and environment, said: "The responsibility for undertaking works of this nature, including the financing, has yet to be formally resolved at national level with Railtrack.

"However, in view of the safety implications, and in line with some other authorities nationally, it is intended that the appropriate work is implemented."

In July, Tony Blair pledged to sort out who should pay for the repairs on railway bridges across the country but as yet no announcements have been made.

The bridges which need repairs urgently are at Brafferton Mill, Brafferton, Salters Lane South, in Darlington, and Hurworth Place, and the work will cost about £70,000.

Bridges at Thompson Street East and Haughton Road need £40,000 of work. Dinsdale Station and Burtree will have £20,000 spent on work of low priority.

If agreed by the council, the urgent work will be carried out within the next year, the less important work will be finished in 2004, and those works which have been assessed as low priority will be carried out by 2005.