A RESTORATION project which failed to win enough television votes for a massive grant is just one step away from reaching its £7m target.

Cheshire County Council will donate up to £100,000 to help restore the Lion Salt Works at Northwich.

The donation is one of the last pieces of the financial jigsaw needed to create a working industrial museum and major visitor attraction.

It will ensure a further conditional grant of £400,000 from the North West Development Agency and looks likely to ensure a date to start work of 2008/9.

Last year the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded a grant of nearly £5m.

The works featured in the BBC series Restoration in 2004 but failed to win the viewers' vote for a multi-million-pound grant, losing out to Victoria Baths in Manchester.

Dating from the mid 18th century, the Lion Salt works is the last open pan salt refining works in the Weaver Valley. It is an official Ancient Monument and a site of national industrial archaeological importance.

It stands on the banks of the Trent and Mersey Canal

Coun Nora Dolphin said: "It is an important part of our local heritage and of the history of the national salt industry. I am delighted that we have been able to support the project.

"Hopefully, this money and the further NWDA funding it unlocks will ensure the preservation of a historic monument of local and national importance and create a visitor centre which will add a new dimension to local tourism."

Mike Cooksley of the Weaver Valley Management Board said: "I am delighted that the county council, together with others, is supporting the restoration of the Lion Salt Works, this will be a key site for the promotion of the Weaver Valley's unique salt heritage.

"The resulting visitor attraction will add greatly to the cluster of facilities developing around Northwich, making the town an essential part of the Weaver Valley Initiative and helping drive forward the rapidly expanding visitor economy of the area and the county."

Visitors would be given hands-on experience of salt production carried out on the site by the Thompson family for five generations since it was established in 1894.

One feature of the works will be to demonstrate the making of different grades of salt, from coarse fishery salt to fine examples and block salt, as well as developing skills to make salt in replica Iron Age ceramic salt pans.

The site is one of only three open-pan salt works left in Europe.