A delegation heads to the US today on a fact-finding mission to boost a technology park development proposed in the North-East.

Civic, economic and academic figures will visit County Durham's namesake twin in North Carolina to view its Research Triangle Park.

The delegation hopes the tour will help the planned North-East Technology Park (NetPark) take a further step forward.

Funded from the £7m windfall from the county's share of the sell-off of Newcastle Airport, NetPark is seen as a forward-looking project to help create new industries and bring high-tech companies to the region. It is earmarked for what is seen as a showpiece business park planned on the site of the former Winterton Hospital on the outskirts of Sedgefield, County Durham.

The project takes its inspiration from the North Carolina Research Triangle, a 7,000-acre business park which over 50 years has become home to 140 businesses, employing 42,000 full-time staff.

Developed to counter the decline of the state's previously dominant tobacco industry, in a triangle bounded by Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh, in North Carolina, the park was formed with input from the nearby Duke University, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University.

Project partners Durham County Council, Sedgefield Borough Council and Durham University, backed by regional development agency One NorthEast, hope to recreate the triangle in the grounds of the former Winterton site.

The delegation is made up of county council leader Ken Manton and chief executive Kingsley Smith, plus Mark Lloyd, the managing director of the County Durham Development Company, and the senior pro-vice chancellor of Durham University, Professor John Anstee.

Councillor Manton said: "We're pinning a lot of hopes on this, and it's vital we see how they have created the research triangle in North Carolina.

"There are comparisons in that both areas are reeling from the decline of a key industry, in their case tobacco and in ours, coal.

"They went down the route of developing in the pharmaceutical field, whereas we are looking more at the technology category. But we are aiming to recreate what they have done in 50 years in something like ten here."

With planning consent, phase one of NetPark could take shape in coming months, on 33 acres of the site, with potential for 1,000 jobs.