A FORMER rubbish tip turned visitor attraction has received guarantees of Government help for the next ten years.

Botanist David Bellamy opened Billingham Beck Valley Country Park in July 1991 on the site of what had become a mounting sea of rubbish known as Stephenson's Tip.

People living near the site had threatened to report the former Cleveland County Council to the regional Ombusdman, but it was the local authority which began a three-year plan to transform the site into an ecology park, winning an award from the Royal Town Planning Institute.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has now pledged conservation grants for the continuing improvement of the 200-acre wetland site for the coming decade, using traditional management methods.

The park, which is now run by Stockton Borough Council, was one of the first sites in the North-East to sign up to a Countryside Stewardship agreement when it opened more than ten years ago.

It is that agreement which has been renewed, underwriting conservation work at the park for the next decade.

David Askey is a site ranger at the reserve, which plays an important part in national wildlife survey work.

He said: "We have a very wide range of unusual plant and animal species here. One survey found 18 species of molluscs under just one bridge, some of which are only the size of a pinhead.

"The Countryside Stewardship Scheme allows us to manage the site for nature conservation and we do a wide variety of work, from the annual cutting, baling and grazing of traditional wet meadows to the restoration of ditches and hedgerows.

"The scheme also paid for the Wildlife Trust to help us cut the reedbeds last year, which was very labour intensive.''

The new money will be used to manage wet grasslands, restore ancient ditches, as well as for hedge laying, planting and coppicing.

Defra said the site, which has a visitor centre, circular walks, meadows, ponds, reedbeds and willow carr woodlands, was "a very good example of our work with a local authority" to help improve the countryside around towns.