Darlington'S newest art gallery needs a name. The space inside the former rates hall in the town hall has housed a number of shows since its conversion into a gallery last October, and the annual Dover Prize exhibition opens there this weekend.

To coincide with the latest show, Darlington Borough Council has launched a Name the Gallery competition. The winner will receive a family ticket to a production at the Civic Theatre.

Use of the old rates hall follows the loss of the Crown Street gallery, now a computer centre, inside the town's central library.

The competition is being organised by the council's visual and public arts officer, Wendy Scott, who took up her post towards the end of last year.

She envisages a lively use of the space, not only by the regular amateur societies that always used Crown Street, but by other creative groups and individuals who may in the past not have considered putting work on public display.

One advantage of the new gallery is the ceiling to floor glass frontage which makes it particularly light and airy.

"The Crown Street gallery was never just a gallery," said Mrs Scott. "It was a library where exhibitions were held. I want to open up the new space to anybody who applies with ideas and can send in examples of their artwork," she said.

She is now working on a programme of exhibitions for 2004 with the aim of encouraging new and exciting local talent.

The ethos will be somewhat different to that at the Myles Meehan Gallery in the arts centre which tends to show the work of established and professional artists with a national or international reputation.

Mrs Scott hopes to persuade art groups which at present use council venues to take a fresh look at the way they exhibit and promote their work, perhaps by developing particular themes, as much for the enjoyment of the viewing public as for their own learning potential.

"I would like the new gallery to become a more open space and particularly in helping those who exhibit there to do so as professionally as possible," she said.

Mrs Scott will be able to offer advice on this and can apply for funding to cover such things as posters and advertising.

"I am interested in ideas about what might be shown there," she said, "and in particular about work that is original and that has not been exhibited anywhere in the area within the last two years. There is no point in constantly showing the same things."

Exhibitions will run for between four and six weeks, and all groups and individuals will have to apply in writing to Mrs Scott at Darlington Arts Centre, Vane Terrace, Darlington, DL3 7AX.

Entry forms for the naming competition are available from the town hall reception, tourist information centre, central library and in the Town Crier as well as in this column. They have also been circulated to schools.

The closing date is Friday, April 25.

The announcement of the name is planned to coincide with Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College's exhibition preview on May 15.

The Dover Prize exhibition, which attracts professional and semi-professional artists from a wide area in the North, opens tomorrow