SUPPORT flooded in yesterday for a public meeting planned by The Northern Echo to highlight the suffering faced by thousands of North-East miners.

The newspaper and Easington District Council yesterday confirmed plans for a forum at which miners and their families can get expert advice in their fight to speed up compensation payments.

Out of more than 110,000 claims made by miners and their families across the country, for diseases caused by crippling coal dust, only one has been processed so far by the Department of Trade and Industry.

The idea of a public meeting has been widely welcomed as a practical way of highlighting the problems being faced in the region's former coal communities.

Easington District Council was yesterday exploring possible venues and dates for a public meeting in the next few weeks, details of which will be published in The Northern Echo in the coming days.

Further backing for the public forum came yesterday from the Union of Construction Allied Trades and Technicians.

The union has about 25,000 members across the country, and has traditionally been closely affiliated with the mining industry.

David Ayre, the union branch secretary at Crook, County Durham, who worked as a construction worker in Easington and Silksworth pits, said: "The meeting seems a good idea. Anything that could improve the miners' lot we would support."

Miner's daughter Pat Daglish, whose father Thomas died before receiving full compensation for his lung disease, said she had received messages of support after prompting the call for a public meeting.

She said: "Everyone I speak to feels the same way and says what I am trying to do is right.

"Eventually, I want to get enough volunteers to help me organise a petition and take it down to Downing Street to make Tony Blair sit up and take notice."

Solicitors in the North-East have been pushing for a speeding up of compensation payments.

The process is long and complex, partly because of the sheer weight of claimants, and the checks that need to be carried out on their medical records.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Trade and Industry said: "There has never been anything like this before and unfortunately we are learning as we go along.