THE COST of repairing crumbling railway bridges has soared by more than £100,000, it was revealed last night as a wrangle delayed work yet again.

Repairs to a bridge at Dalton-on-Tees, near Darlington, were due to start yesterday.

But the deadline came and went after it emerged that Northern Electric and Railtrack are at loggerheads over the best way to remove poles carrying the high tension wires.

Officials ordered the repairs last year after the state of the bridge barrier - the scene of two major accidents in recent years - was revealed by The Northern Echo.

They agreed the bridge was one of the worst on the East Coast main line.

Engineers have also drawn up plans to repair three other bridge barriers which have been ranked among the worst in North Yorkshire.

But the work was delayed by a "who pays for what" row between North Yorkshire County Council and Railtrack.

Now officials say improvements - originally thought to be £100,000 - will cost more than £200,000.

Councillors will today be urged to sanction the further expenditure to improve all four bridge barriers.

Estimates for carrying out the urgently needed work have come in substantially higher than the authorities had originally expected - and officials are meeting senior county councillors this afternoon to ask for the go-ahead to commit more funding to the projects.

County Hall chiefs are hopeful that the extra spending will be approved to allow work to get under way at Dalton-on-Tees, Danby Wiske, Thirsk Station and Thorpefield.

Brian Jones, of the environmental services department, said: "With double-height barriers and quite complicated foundations to consider, I think it will be substantially above £200,000."

However, the authority could also be about to announce more positive news in its efforts to combat the further decline of bridge barriers.

Risk assessment tests are thought to have identified the next group of bridges considered to be priorities - among them the bridge at the centre of the Selby rail disaster.

The structure near Great Heck, which was struck by the GNER express after it derailed in the tragedy in February last year, is one of four being lined up for repairs.

Another is thought to be a decaying barrier at Dalton, near Thirsk.

Mr Jones said: "With the expenditure being so high on the first four, we may have to see if there is any movement nationally in funds being made available by the Government. But we have always had it in our minds that once we identified the others, we would press ahead."

He added: "We had suspected that the Great Heck bridge would score highly in the risk assessment, because there was a lot of damage done when it was hit by the train, and that has turned out to be the case."

The Northern Echo first revealed the scandalous state of many of the railway bridges along the East Coast main line in May last year.

We visited 50 sites in the North-East and North Yorkshire and found the majority to have woefully inadequate protection.

Read more about the Railway Bridges campaign here.