TOWN traders have sent a message to their community - use your town or lose it.

Stanley Chamber of Trade has issued the warning just days after Derwentside District Council publicly said it was 'taking a step back' from plans for a £100m leisure and entertainment project at the King's Head fields in the town.

The council has recently produced a new blueprint for the regeneration of the town, which has not yet been made public but which focuses on 'more realistic and achievable schemes for investment', according to leader of the council Alex Watson.

The issue of the town's decline came up recently when Conroys furniture shop, one of a major chain which started in Stanley, abandoned the town.

It also emerged that a recent survey showed that vacant retail floor space in Stanley was 24 per cent above the national average. Potential investors in the King's Head site also pulled out of the scheme.

Reacting to a newspaper report highlighting the decline of Stanley, the Chamber of Trade stressed there was still life in the town but the community needed to support its local shops.

Chairman of the chamber of trade Christine Emmerson, said: "We are asking the public to support us so we can bring pressure on the council and other organisations that may be able to help us bring Stanley back to a place that people feel happy and comfortable to use."

She added that the town had a large number of independent traders, despite trade being hit by the MetroCentre and the expansion of shopping facilities in Sunderland.

She said the Chamber of Trade supplies the town's Christmas tree and decorations and had supplied funding for CCTV cameras in an effort to improve the area.

Sylvia Sanderson, who runs The Wool Shop on the Front Street, highlighted a number of issues which she believed had led to the town's decline, including turning the Front Street into a pedestrian-only area and the lack of a major food store on the Front Street.

She added: "You can get just about get everything here but the local people don't seem to know that.