SOME of the last surviving defences built to repel a Nazi invasion during the Second World War are to be preserved.

A council has vowed to maintain one of the North-East's last pairs of wartime pillboxes, used as lookout posts to defend the coast against German invaders.

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council hopes to have the two pillboxes at Marske declared listed buildings as part of a scheme to build a new £360,000 footbridge alongside Black's Bridge, which spans the Redcar to Saltburn railway line.

The concrete pillboxes, on either side of the railway bridge, were built in 1940 and, as a pair, are unique in the North Yorkshire and Teesside area. Single ones can be seen at Warrenby and Coatham Sands.

The pillboxes were placed on road and rail crossings as part of the coastal defence network. They were equipped with Lewis or Vickers machine guns, and the soldiers armed with anti-tank weapons and bren guns.

Ward councillor Garth Houchen said: "I have been campaigning for a segregated bridge for eight years now, on road safety grounds, and I am doubly pleased that the pillboxes will be protected too.

"It is not easy getting across the bridge when other traffic is on it, particularly big lorries. I am convinced local people will be absolutely delighted that we have got progress at last.

"This development has an uncanny link with the needs of our past, having an historic value, and all those years ago provided for our safety in an entirely different context."

The first regiments to serve in Marske were the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, succeeded in 1941 by the 12th Battalion of the Green Howards, then the South Staffordshire regiment. The battalion headquarters was Kirkleatham Hall.

Then, when the threat of invasion subsided, in 1943, the Home Guard took over.

The council hopes to award the design and construction contract by the end of March and anticipates that the bridge will be completed by September.

* More than 20,000 pillboxes, reinforced concrete lookout posts, were built between 1938 and 1942 to repel any German attempt to invade the UK.

* Only about ten per cent of the buildings still exist, according to English Heritage.

* Durham County Council, and the former North Riding authority, blew up most of their coastal pillboxes, branding them as eyesores.

* Since the war pillboxes have had a variety of uses. Some serve as garden sheds and dog kennels, and one, with its top removed, is a garden pond.