ONE thousand tonnes of horse manure could solve a pollution problem on the River Wear.

The bizarre solution is part of a £500,000 scheme launched by Durham County Council to stop polluted water from leaching into the river.

The manure is a vital component needed for efforts to clean up water being discharged from Bowden Close, near Crook, which is the site of a former coal mine, coke ovens and gas works complex.

Polluted water from the site flows into Willington Burn which eventually joins the River Wear.

In a bid to tackle the problem, the council is building a series of lagoons to filter acidic discharges.

The first two lagoons will be filled with a mixture of limestone and horse manure, which will break down the pollutants and neutralise the water.

It will then pass into a third lagoon, which is a one-metre deep reed bed.

Chris Tunstal, director of environment and technical services said: "It's a very unusual scheme but in a smaller scale test pilot on the same site it has worked very well.

"It is an environmentally friendly way of treating contaminated water and we are looking to use it at other sites in the county.''

Construction is due to start at the end of this month and will take 12 weeks to complete.

All that is needed to help finish it is the manure, which will only need to be renewed every ten years.

Mr Tunstall said: "We are now busy trying to locate enough horse manure to make this work.

"All in all we need about 1,000 tonnes, which is an awful lot of manure and we are talking to local farmers to source supplies.''

Mr Tunstall said that the manure will not be shipped to the site all at once and will be carried in sealed lorries.

It will be mixed with the limestone as soon as it arrives on site.