TRANSPORT Minister Keith Hill has announced that Loftus Bank is due to open next Friday - providing fuel distribution problems are resolved.

He visited Teesside this week to inspect progress of work to stabilise and reconstruct the bank on following last year's landslip.

In one of the biggest engineering projects Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council has attempted, it took on 15 men to work 12-hour shifts for nine months.

Mr Hill and local MP Ashok Kumar were invited to meet the workforce and inspect the project being undertaken on the bank.

Dr Kumar said: "There has been a lot of understandable frustration over the length of time this scheme has taken, but I know from my visits to the site just how complex and demanding it has been."