A COUNCIL is offering a financial lifeline to two youth hostels under threat in the wake of the foot-and-mouth crisis.

County Durham has three hostels - Baldersdale and Langdon Beck in Teesdale and Edmundbyers, a few miles from Consett.

All of them have been hit hard by restrictions on movement in the countryside.

Baldersdale, on the Pennine Way, has been closed for some time, while the other two hostels have seen their business halved this year.

Durham County Council is to offer, in principle, funding for improvements at Langdon Beck. It will also give up to £12,500 for the refurbishment of Edmundbyers.

The Youth Hostel Association has £100,000 plans to expand the environmental and educational role of Langdon Beck.

The association plans to create a field studies centre for people who are not staying at the hostel, and to launch a project linking hostel visitors with local farm and tourist businesses.

Edmundbyers, which is only staying open because of the support of volunteers, needs £25,000 work to upgrade its accommodation.

The association hopes that the schemes will secure the future of the hostels.

The council's economic development and planning director, Mark Lloyd, said in a report to the executive committee: "The Youth Hostel Association is very aware of the need to upgrade their hostels to offer competitive accommodation to visitors, not only in terms of price but also of quality.

"They have to generate sufficient revenue so that hostels can be made more competitive.

"In the past the county council has assisted this process at Langdon Beck and Edmundbyers with tourism enterprise scheme grants."

Mr Lloyd added that Baldersdale was the "most vulnerable" hostel as it did not have an obvious niche in the market to expand into.

But he added that the Langdon Beck project could increase the numbers of visitors using Baldersdale, as they could also use the new Langdon Beck facilities.