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 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 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 the leader of the council, Councillor Alex Watson.

The issue of the town's decline was highlighted 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 an article in The Northern Echo highlighting the decline of Stanley, the Chamber of Trade said there was still life in the town, but the community needed to support their local shops.

Chairwoman of the chamber, Christine Emmerson, issued a statement on behalf of the group. She 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 said that the town had a large number of independent traders, despite trade being hit by the MetroCentre at Gateshead and the expansion of shopping in Sunderland.

She said the chamber had provided funds for closed-circuit television cameras in an effort to improve the area.

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

But she said: "You can get just about everything here. The local people don't seem to know that."

l On October 9, The Northern Echo published a picture of a number of shops next to the boarded-up Imperial Hotel, which were closed at the time. We wish to make it clear that these shops are open for business