A Teesside filmmaker has been awarded £75,000 to complete a documentary about the mining heritage of his home town and to set up a local TV channel.

Craig Hornby, 35, said he had always been obsessed with Eston and its place in history as a major ironstone producer.

Now, he has become the first recipient in the North-East of a grant from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, which was set up by film producer Lord Puttnam to encourage aspiring artists.

He will use the cash to complete his feature-length documentary film, A Century in Stone, and to set up a cable TV channel where other locally-made films can be shown.

"I pushed my luck and asked for £69,000, but I didn't think I would get the award because it seemed unlikely that a high-profile organisation would support such a locally-orientated project on Teesside," he said.

"To be awarded the top amount - £75,000 - is a fantastic vote of confidence."

Two-and-a-half years in the making, A Century of Stone traces Eston's mining history from ironstone first being discovered in 1850 to the pit closing in 1949.

"I interviewed ex-miners and their wives and re-enacted scenes of life in the pits," said Mr Hornby, now of Palm Street, Middlesbrough.

An earlier version of the film, which he made in the late 1980s on a budget of £1,500, provoked massive interest in the area and "inadvertently made me the social historian for my town".

With his film almost finished he wants to encourage other people to produce programmes which celebrate Teesside.

"I would like to see more programmes that focus exclusively on Teesside," he said.

"The Eston ironstone film is a perfect ice-breaker and much more than just a historical documentary.

"It stimulates pride in the area's past, which gets people talking about the area today and its increasingly maligned state."

He plans to produce his film on DVD and video and to publish an accompanying book, before opening a production facility in Middlesbrough and eventually, launching a cable channel.

"I've had initial talks with ntl and Boro TV which have welcomed the idea of cable-casting quality local programmes. I think local TV could work here because it would be putting Teesside first."