POLICE in Darlington are hoping to revive interest in a confidential website launched last year to snare drug dealers.

So far this year, www.nettherat.org has received just three emails from people with information about drug dealing activities in the town.

Yet when it was launched last March, it sparked a flurry of responses, leading to the seizure of £20,000 worth of drugs in its first week.

Sergeant Paul Robinson, from Darlington police's community safety unit, said local interest in the site had dwindled, although there had been emails received from as far afield as Maryland, in the US.

"When it first got off the ground it went fairly well," he said.

"We are still getting information through, but a lot of it is now for outside the area. We pass the information on."

Councillor Bill Dixon, chairman of the Darlington Drugs and Alcohol Action Team, said the site was still thought to be the only one of its kind on the Internet.

"It is working really well and has resulted in a large number of arrests and has given the police information they would have either not had or would have taken many weeks to get, but it needs to be kept in the public eye," he said.

The Net the Rat appeal was originally part of the Rat on a Rat campaign, which has now ended.

"We still want to give people the opportunity to give us information anonymously about drug dealers and they can do that on the site," said Sgt Robinson.

"We know the website works because of the drugs hauls we had following information given to us last year. Sometimes the emails provide us with that little link that we need. But we wouldn't act just on the information in an email; we would always make sure there was supporting intelligence."