DURHAM County Cricket Club made an urgent appeal for millions of pounds in public funding – only months before it is due to host its first Ashes Test in March 2013.

On March 13, 2013, a spokeswoman for the Chester-le-Street-based club said the shock plea for nearly £6m from the public purse was essential to secure the long-term future of international cricket at Durham by sustaining infrastructure.

But the application "did not reflect any immediate threat to the Ashes", she said.

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Durham County Council's cabinet had already agreed in principle to a £2.8m loan, with leader Simon Henig saying the club provided more than 100 jobs and a very strong community sport programme for young people.

The North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) was expected to agree a further £2.8m in funding.

An LEP spokeswoman said partners were committed to making investment "in the context of a sustainable business plan that maintains international cricket in the North-East".

Hundreds of people around the region gathered to demonstrate against the controversial so-called bedroom tax, on March 16, 2013.

Protests took place in Durham City, Darlington, Newcastle and York, with many bearing home-made banners and signs to voice their opposition to the changes to housing benefit.

Dozens of protests took place around the UK, organised by campaign group Labour Left, against Government plans to reduce housing benefits for anyone of working age living in social housing with spare bedrooms.

The plans have sparked outrage among many people who say the reduction is unfair to the poorest in society.

More than 100 protestors gathered in Durham's Market Place, where Durham MP Roberta Blackman-Woods spoke to the crowd.

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Mr Morris described the Government's decision to cut housing benefit for those deemed to have extra bedrooms as "perverse", adding that the disabled and families with children would be hardest hit.

Finally, the grave of a medieval knight and the foundations of a monastery built by a former king of Scotland was found under an old city car park.

Archaeologists made the discoveries, with dozens of other artefacts, during the excavation of a building site in Edinburgh's Old Town.