STRONGMAN Stephen Brooks will be challenging his contemporaries to lift the Tyne Bridge when he stages a contest of strength.

The 35-year-old muscleman, who this year achieved his ambition of becoming the UK's strongest man, is organising his own competition in March, when participants will have to carry a scaled-down version of the famous North-East landmark.

Created from iron and lead, and weighing 250kg, lifting the bridge certainly will not be a walkover.

Mr Brooks, from Spennymoor, County Durham, said: "It will be called the Tyne Walk, because I've had it made in the shape of the Tyne Bridge and they will have to waddle as far as they can with it."

Other events will involve lifting a car and pushing over a heavy post.

The competition will take place at Spennymoor Leisure Centre, on March 3, and there will be 25 participants from across England.

But Mr Brooks will not be taking part in the contest himself, because he will have to keep to his punishing training schedule or risk losing his title as the strongest man in the country.

Since clinching the title in September last year, his fame has spread far and wide, even earning him a part in the cookery programme Ready, Steady Cook, which was broadcast on December 27.

During the show, pancakes with spinach, nutmeg and cottage cheese fillings, and a chicken and pasta dish, were created with the ingredients he took to the studio - a far cry from the ten chickens, 70 eggs and 28 pints of milk he usually gets through in a week.