"MORE adventurous ways of fundraising" should be explored to pay for a £5m bridge to ease traffic congestion around a busy level crossing at Northallerton, councillors have been told.

Last month, the executive of North Yorkshire County Council agreed that all work on the scheme, at Low Gates, in North End, should be abandoned because it was unlikely to qualify for support funding from the Government.

Executive members agreed the scheme should be removed from the local transport plan, but the decision must be ratified by the full county council.

The bridge over the Northallerton-to-Teesside line was seen as an answer to worsening road congestion at Low Gates, where the number of trains means traffic queues regularly build up when the barriers are down.

The line is used by passenger trains between Teesside and Manchester Airport, as well as for freight, and is expected to become busier when Grand Central Railway begins running services between Sunderland and London.

The proposed bridge was not given priority support for funding by the Regional Transport Board, which takes advice on major schemes from development agency Yorkshire Forward and the Yorkshire and Humber Assembly.

But county councillor Tim Swales told the Hambleton area committee that he thought the project was viable and he called for a working group of officers from the county and district councils to try to find a way forward.

Coun Swales said that with so many houses and businesses in the Low Gates area, and talk of a new industrial estate, there was an opportunity to look at other methods of funding the scheme.

County council leader John Weighell said: "We have to be more adventurous and look at other sources of funding. We have to get many other people involved. It is the only way we can get schemes like this funded.''

The committee heard that as an alternative to a bridge, the county council may consider plans to relieve congestion with a link from the A167 to Stokesley Road and the A684 at nearby Stone Cross.