VITAL work to repair six North Yorkshire bridges over railways classed as "high priority" - including one at Great Heck - could be in fresh danger after a Government cash snub.

North Yorkshire County Council chiefs have been told they cannot include costs for repairing road over rail bridges in their annual performance review.

The delay comes in the same week as a lorry cab smashed into a bridge at Howden, sending ten tonnes of debris onto the nearby Selby-to-Hull line.

Work costing more than £200,000 is already under way to repair four county bridges on the East Coast Main Line.

The council is adamant that the six new bridges, identified after a review following the Selby Rail Crash, will be repaired as quickly as possible. One of those is the road bridge at Great Heck, where in February last year, a GNER express train came to rest after it collided with a freight train.

But the council has limited resources with which to carry out the repairs. The authority is currently looking to bill Railtrack for half the cost of the opening scheme.

Brian Jones, its client officer at environmental services, said: "We are pleased to have begun this work and we are about half-way through repairing the first four bridges. The next move is to decide where our money is coming from to carry on. No specific funds are allocated."

He said the council had recently sent its annual performance review to the Government.

"We were pushing hard to include the costs of the road-over-rail but the Government said it didn't want it to be included."

Director of environmental services Mike Moore said: "If the local authority fails to get help from central Government and Railtrack, the cost will be borne by local funds."

Meanwhile, the lorry hanging over the railway bridge on the A614 at Howden was dragged to safety yesterday. Railtrack experts helped to remove the vehicle, and a separate digger, after they collided on Monday. The line is expected to reopen on Saturday.

Updated: 11:46 Thursday, August 01, 2002