HALF-A-MILLION pounds of Lottery cash secured following a TV vote could be lost to the region amid an entrenched legal wrangle.

Transport charity Sustrans won £500,000 towards reopening Durham’s spectacular Belmont Viaduct as a cycleway and footpath after a public vote on ITV’s People’s Millions contest.

But project costs rocketed by nearly £1m and Durham County Council has put the scheme on hold after failing to resolve crucial land rights issues.

Council chiefs say they have not abandoned the project, but have begun looking at other options for the viaduct’s future.

As a result, the Lottery cash could be lost to another Sustrans scheme – potentially outside the North-East.

Neil Mitchell, area manager for Sustrans, said: “It is a shame that the council could not commit to delivering the Belmont scheme for Durham, as it had huge benefits for the area.

“The funding allocated to Durham County Council will go back in the national project budget and, although we are open to other suggestions from Durham, the money will not necessarily stay in the county.”

Councillor Neil Foster, the council’s cabinet member for regeneration and economic development, said the council had worked extremely hard to acquire the land needed and he was very disappointed the issues had not been resolved.

“We are now working to ensure the money awarded for the project can be kept in the county by working with Sustrans to identify an alternative scheme to the viaduct.

“I would like to stress that this is a delay to our plans to reopen the viaduct. It is not a decision to abandon the project.”

Roberta Blackman-Woods, Labour MP for Durham City, said it was extremely important the funding stayed in the county.

“It is disappointing that the Belmont Viaduct scheme has been put on hold, but I do hope that it will come to fruition in the future.”

Belmont Viaduct once carried the Newcastle to Bishop Auckland railway line. Its reopening was key to Durham’s Necklace Park scheme, to create a 12-mile park along the River Wear.