LABOUR Party officials will tell a troubled council to get its act together at a showdown meeting today.

Officers from the party's regional headquarters will meet the ruling Labour group on Durham City Council to discuss ways of repairing the council's tarnished image.

Officials are understood to be prepared to do some "straight talking" and demand change during the private meeting.

They are dismayed at the run of bad publicity the council has attracted, locally and nationally, since the end of last year.

And they fear that the Labour group has lost sight of the "need to be seen to be on the side of the people of Durham" because of political infighting.

The council was at the centre of a fraud squad inquiry into a controversial land deal for the council's ambitious Millennium City development.

The eight-month investigation ended in June when the Crown Prosecution Service advised that no charges be brought against chief executive Colin Shearsmith and businessman Robert Fulton, who always denied any wrongdoing.

There has also been controversy over the award of a film contract for a heritage centre in the millennium development, and allegations of racial discrimination, denied by the council, levelled by a former officer.

The council, which hopes to transform a run-down area of the city, is also beset with financial problems and is trying to reduce its wage bill through voluntary redundancies.

A regional party source said: "All the good things the council is doing have been lost in bad publicity. Durham Labour have begun to turn things around. We'll be telling them that they need to go further.