ONE of the key figures behind expansion plans for a North-East airport has backed calls to speed up improvements to an accident blackspot.

Peter Nears, strategic planning director of Durham and Tees Valley Airport owner Peel Holdings, has vowed to help local councillors in lobbying for work to start on the Longnewton junction on the A66, near Stockton.

The pledge was made at a meeting of the airport's joint consultative committee, where plans and diagrams showing the proposed expansion were discussed.

The junction has seen a series of accidents in recent years, where motorists travelling towards Stockton must cross two streams of traffic heading in the opposite direction. But work on the junction has been continually delayed.

Councillor Peter Foster, of the Darlington Association of Parish Councils, criticised the delay, saying: "I was very disappointed when they put it back to 2008.

"It's been put back and back and back over 15 years. What I'm saying is that it should be put in place before the expansion, not after it."

Coun Foster said: "I'm so mad about this, I have asked for a meeting with the Prime Minister because the Prime Minister is my MP," he said.

Mr Nears, who is responsible for many aspects of the planning stages, said: "Longnewton is certainly something that is at the forefront of our minds."

He said Peel Holdings would support the parish councils' efforts.

"It's very important that the lobbying is combined. I believe that we can make good improvements as to when this scheme should be implemented.

"It needs to be a case that the consultative committee reinforce the points that people feel about this issue. We can support the parish council in lobbying areas where they can reach and we cannot."