RESIDENTS who have been fighting to have the back streets behind their homes brought up to standard have been given a glimmer of hope.

Dene Valley Parish Council, Wear Valley District Council and Durham County Council are now working together on exploring the possibility of a £2m scheme, which could see all of the back roads in the Coundon, Dene Valley and West Auckland area resurfaced.

The move comes after the parish council called a meeting with the other two authorities to look at the possibility of putting in a bid for European funding.

Councillor Chris Foote Wood, from the parish council, said: "This has been an on-going problem for years, and residents, particularly those in William Street, Auckland Park, have been fighting to have their streets done for a long time.

"We know there is a chance of applying for funding from Europe but this is something that the parish council could not do on its own.

"It needed backing from the district and the county and now that we have this, it is offering residents a glimmer of hope.''

Bob Hope, director of regeneration at the district council, agreed that the authorities would work together to try to identify funding for a pilot scheme, which would hopefully lead to all of the back roads in the Wear Valley area being brought up to standard.

He said: "We did a survey in the 1990s and the work for the whole of the Wear Valley area came to something like £6m.

"None of the local councils have that sort of money and at this moment there is no single pot of money that we could apply to.

"We have agreed to look at the possibility of obtaining external funding for a pilot scheme and look at how much the scheme could cost.''

A spokeswoman for Durham County Council confirmed that a working party was being set up to tackle the problems of unmade back streets