THE owners of a website promoting a rural district of County Durham have accused a North-East market town of copying their format.

TeesdaleNet, the owners of the new Teesdale gateway website, have said the Alnwick gateway website is identical to the one that they have set up. The Teesdale website, www.teesdale.co.uk, promotes businesses, community groups and voluntary organisations and provides a resource for tourists in the dale.

One NorthEast is funding websites for 13 market towns in the region and Teesdale was the first to go live.

Chris Dauber, the chairman of TeesdaleNet, has said he has written to the webmaster of the Alnwick website, www.alnwickgateway.co.uk, asking for it to be closed.

He said: "This is the duplication of something we have been working on for more than a year.

"Look at the colour schemes, it's a duplication of the branding.

"The whole point of this is about businesses making a presence - about having a unique selling point. If you end up with a duplication for every single market town, it ruins that."

But Creative Cake, from North Shields, the company which set up both websites on behalf of One NorthEast, defended the website designs.

Company spokesman Richard Foreman said: "I think basically Teesdale has blown this out of all proportion.

"All these sites have similar needs. If we want to apply it to others, who am I to say no.

"It would cost a heck of a lot more if we were to do different designs for every individual."