A RENEWED bid has been launched for a new rink to serve a city's ice sports enthusiasts.

Fans of ice hockey, figure skating and other rink-related activities in Durham City have been forced to travel to Billingham and Whitley Bay to indulge their passion in recent years.

It followed the closure of the city's ailing Riverside Rink, which has been converted into a ten-pin bowling alley and health club.

The situation was made worse when the next nearest rink, at Sunderland's Crow-tree Leisure Centre, closed last year because of a series of faults.

Repairs are planned, but it is uncertain when the facility will be ready to reopen, leaving figure skaters and ice hockey fans and players facing the trek to Teesside or across the Tyne.

A meeting was called in Durham City last week for enthusiasts eager to see a new rink to serve the city.

Organiser Richard Endean said there was still a hard core of ice hockey fans and figure skaters who yearn for a rink in Durham.

He said: "Generations of some families regularly used the rink in Durham and remember it fondly.

"I was a boyhood Durham Wasps ice hockey fan and grew up with it for ten years. It would be great if we could get some sort of rink up and running again in Durham.

"When the old rink closed there was a bit of a campaign to get a new one, but it all seemed to die away and nothing seems to have happened for a few years.

"Basically, a few of us got together to just sound out ideas, as a starting point."

Further meetings are planned to put together firmer proposals, but Mr Endean knows it will require a large input of private finance for their dream to become reality.

John Jennings, Durham City Council's director of environmental services, said the day-to-day upkeep of an ice rink was "astronomical" and beyond the means of most local authorities without outside funding.

But he said: "We would be prepared to talk to them at any stage, as we would with anyone coming up with an imaginative proposal, to see if anything can be done."

Mr Endean plans to call a further meeting at Durham's Hogshead pub at a date which will be announced next month