PLANS are being put in place to help a cricket club get back on its feet following a suspected arson attack at the weekend.

The pavilion at Spennymoor Cricket Club was destroyed by the blaze on Saturday night.

Spennymoor Town Council, which owns the site, has been in touch with the insurance company hoping to facilitate the rebuilding of the clubhouse.

Council representatives also hope to meet club officials this week to sort out more immediate concerns, such as seeing out the rest of the season in the Darlington and District League.

Town clerk Katherine Hierons said: "We have been in touch with the insurance company and hope a loss assessor will be out in the next 48 hours.

"Then we will meet onsite, hopefully with some of the committee members, to find out what they have lost and what they need to move forward.

"In the meantime we want to make sure they can play the rest of the season.

"We think the field will be fine, one of the council team has been out and done a bit of a clean-up and what looked like scorch marks is probably just dirty water from the firefighters so should be fine.

"We're looking at the possibility of a tent or marquee and portable loos.

"There has been outstanding support from the public, lots of positive messages and members' attitude is that we should do whatever we can to help the club."

Police were called to the scene at 8.20pm and officers are treating the blaze– extinguished by firefighters– as arson. The investigation into the cause continues, anyone with information can call police on 101, quoting incident 481 of July 7.