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Almost £5m has been found to save a ferry service and secure its future.

Council leaders are set to sign off £4.58m to go towards the building of a new north landing for the Shields Ferry.

It will come from leftover cash from a Tyne and Wear Metro upgrade.

The future of the river crossing had been in doubt with worries the existing jetty in North Shields would fall into an unusable state in 2025.

Plans have long been in place to relocate the terminal to a new location next to the North Shields Fish Quay.

The project has suffered a number of setbacks with the cost of the project rising to close to £15m due to inflation.

On Tuesday, the North East Joint Transport Committee is expected to agree to reallocate unspent money from the Metro Flow project, a major scheme that saw single track sections of the Metro line to South Shields dualled in 2022.

That leaves a substantial portion of the funding to be secured, but there is confidence that will come this summer following the election of the new North East mayor in May, said.

Regional transport chiefs have asked for the government to "accelerate" £8.1m of the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement to be given to the mayor.

Metro and ferry operator Nexus said moving the ferry terminal to the Fish Quay would be the only option, given the state of the current jetty.

"To do this in the same location would be a considerable cost but without all the benefits of moving to the Fish Quay," said Nexus managing director, Cathy Massarella.

"It would also mean to the ferry service could not operate for a prolonged period of up to a year."

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