A SMALL east Durham community is appealing for help as its only link road to the outside world gets more impassable.

Deliveries to homes in the rural hamlet of Heath View, near Station Town, have already stopped and taxi drivers will neither drop off nor pick up people from the 16 homes.

But concern is growing among residents of the terraced houses and detached bungalows after a doctor refused to negotiate the pot-holed lane to visit a patient.

The half mile stretch of unadopted roadway - known as byway number six Station Town to Heath View - is in its worst state for 40 years, claims resident Dennis Lawson.

At one time, the properties, now surrounded by fields, were the homes of officials working at the village colliery.

The road and its adjacent pedestrian footpath were well maintained then, but since the closure of the pit and the demolition of many neighbouring homes the vital lane has deteriorated into little more than a rutted track.

Not even newspapers are delivered to Heath View, and when Mr Lawson asked his newsagent why, he was told that a health and safety assessment had found the road was a "hazard, with such high risks as to render it unsafe to continue to use it."

Conditions were further exacerbated by recent flooding: "In places on the lane there are potholes up to two feet deep,'' said retired Mr Lawson who, with his neighbours, has called on the assistance of Durham County Council. But a county hall spokesman said that as the lane was a byway his authority was only responsible for making it passable. It will shortly be filling in the potholes.

He also confirmed that farmers owning land adjacent to the road had been asked to carry out drainage work to prevent flooding on the lane.

But he made it clear that if residents wanted the roadway adopted they would have to fund the upgrading work themselves.

Wingate Parish Council has already promised to help residents and Mr Lawson has asked the county council to provide an estimate for the work.

Only then could residents assess whether they could afford to have the work carried out, he said.