MINOR roads in County Durham could suffer if the council becomes responsible for the cost of maintaining the A167, it has been claimed.

The road, from Newton Aycliffe to Chester-le-Street, is in line to be detrunked, which means responsibility for improving it would pass to the county council.

But the council is concerned that if no extra cash is forthcoming it will have to find the money from its existing budget.

A spokesman said: "It could be that what we're having to do is to put money in from our own budget to bring a trunk road up to the standard we think is necessary and spend money on a road that isn't really ours.

"We can't spend money on a trunk road and the existing county roads - it would be like robbing Peter to pay Paul."

The council has expressed its concerns to the Government in its Local Transport Plan (LTP) - the council's bid for the development of all transport and travel systems for five years.

Included in that is a proposal for an A167 bypass at Chilton, which has been talked about for 60 years.

But, there are 13 other improvement schemes that the council would like to see implemented in the near future, which it may have to pay for itself if the road is detrunked.

The report says: "The county council is deeply concerned that no provision, separate from LTP funding, has been made to address the need for major schemes on routes identified for detrunking."