Cash award puts Jobs in pipeline - after crunch.

MORE than pounds 3m has been awarded to County Durham as a result of a joint bid by local authorities to win funding for social and economic growth.

The cash forms part of the second round of the Government's New Growth Points programme and will support ambitious plans for new houses, employment, transport and related environmental improvements between now and 2016. The main area of housing growth will be along the A19 Corridor, including the towns of Peterlee and Seaham, as well as to the south of the county in the Bishop Auckland area.

The programme plans to deliver 11,500 new homes between 2008/09 and 2016/17, including a target of 2,300 affordable homes.

The new housing will be linked to town centre regeneration and will be twinned with new job creation by developing nine 'mixed use' housing and employment sites.

It will also link with ongoing master-planning in Peterlee and Bishop Auckland town centres and will help to secure improvements to transport, healthcare and education in and around these communities.

The bid was developed jointly by Durham County Council, District of Easington, Sedgefield Borough Council and Wear Valley District Council.

Glyn Hall, chair of the South & East Durham NGP Board and director of Neighbourhood Services at Sedgefield Borough, said: "This funding is not only a vote of confidence from the Government in Durham as a place where people want to live and make their home, it is also an opportunity for us to plan new housing and community facilities that are to high standards of design and environmental sustainability."

Coun Neil Foster, Durham County Council's cabinet member for Economic Regeneration and board member said: This is great news for the whole of County Durham.

"It offers the prospect of more local jobs when the housing market starts to make a recovery from the credit crunch."