TEN months after the Selby train crash, railway bridges throughout the region remain in a scandalous condition - and fears are growing that a similar disaster could happen at any time.

Despite widespread demands for immediate improvements to roadside barriers following February's tragedy, local authorities have taken only the most limited action and many are still in dispute over who should foot the bill.

And last night, a leading expert claimed the Government was just as responsible for the Selby catastrophe as Gary Hart.

Structural engineer Professor John Knapton, of Newcastle University, said: "It is not all his fault. He is guilty of dangerous driving, but the Government is equally culpable.

"It has the evidence and statistics to know that these things do happen."

In the three years leading up to the Selby crash, there were 31 incidents involving motorists losing control of their vehicles, landing on railways and obstructing lines. In ten cases, the vehicles were hit by trains.

The perilous state of bridges along the East Coast Main Line in the North-East and North Yorkshire was first highlighted by The Northern Echo in May.

We visited 50 bridges between Newcastle and York and found the approaches to the majority to have woefully inadequate protection.

North Yorkshire County Council has so far carried out no repairs to any of the bridges we found to be in disrepair.

The authority has set aside £100,000 for improvements to ten high-risk bridges, but will still be seeking match-funding from the successor company to Railtrack, and work is not expected to start until the New Year.

All 33 bridges across the East Coast Main Line in the county are in need of some kind of repairs.

A national working group has been set up to establish a risk-scoring assessment for bridges and will report back to a workshop in Durham City on Tuesday.

Durham County Council has undertaken three projects since launching a detailed study of road-over-rail bridges in the wake of the Selby disaster.

A spokesman said some bridges were in such a poor state that the council could not afford to wait to hold discussions over whether it or Railtrack was responsible and who should pay. There is no legislation clearly defining areas of responsibility - an issue which Prof Knapton insisted needs urgently addressing.

"They're not sure who is responsible, which is quite horrifying and means the whole system is falling more and more into disrepair," he said. "Something like Selby could happen again because there have been many near misses."

Prof Knapton added: "We are talking about millions of pounds per bridge being needed here, but they are not thinking about that at the moment.

"The majority of work that is happening is just fiddling about with bits of timber fencing here and there to make sure the photographs in the Press look good.

"Local authorities and the Government are not taking it seriously enough - it's a case of fingers crossed and let's hope it doesn't happen on our patch."

The appalling state of protection on dangerous bridges was illustrated in May when Railtrack announced it would be replacing crumbling wooden fencing on the crossing in Station Lane, Birtley, Gateshead, with yet more timber.

Railtrack is adamant that responsibility for road safety, including highways barriers, is down to local authorities.

Ownership of the bridges was split between the company, the Highways Agency and local councils, it said.

The Department of Transport said it would not be intervening in the matter and would leave it to the Highways Agency.