PUBLICANS and hotel owners working in a beautiful but remote dale are being offered support through a year-long initiative launched yesterday.

Called Mine Host, the venture offers business and marketing support to pubs and inns along the A689 through isolated Weardale, County Durham, where it aims to persuade more people to visit and stay longer.

Businesses which join will be offered help with training, development planning as well as practical and financial help towards improving or extending their premises.

Many pubs in the dale have few rooms or have no accommodation, but creating more and better places to stay is a key element in a strategy to regenerate Weardale.

The Mine Host project got off to a slow start earlier this year when co-ordinator Len Alderson was suspended after being misquoted in a national newspaper. He is now back at work and enthusiastic about the response he has had from landlords.

He said: "Some of them are quite happy with what they are doing, but seven or eight have expressed strong interest.

"A public survey revealed that there is a need for mid-range accommodation. People coming to Weardale want a decent place to stay."

The Northern Echo's Eating Owt columnist Mike Amos was among the speakers at the launch at Horsley Hall Hotel, near Eastgate.

He told landlords: "Our pubs are an essential part of the local economy and they cannot expect to survive with just local trade.

"You need an integrated approach that makes people want to come back and the marketing expertise that the project will bring will not only promote the pubs, but also the dale itself."

Mine Host is part of a market towns initiative led by Wear Valley District Council, which runs until March next year.