A church ravaged by fire could disappear from the skyline after townsfolk voted for the crumbling ruins to be demolished.

Stockton's Holy Trinity Church is the major feature on one of the entrances into the town, set in its own attractive green.

The future of the church, which was burned down in a dramatic fire by vandals in 1991, has been debated for years.

It is too expensive to maintain in roofless, skeletal form, while erosion is making the walls unstable and a risk to passers-by.

The survey included suggestions for alternative uses for the remains, including maintenance as an historic attraction, use by the Salvation Army as a new community centre and hall of worship. The grounds are a burial site for plague victims and could become a memorial garden, under another idea.

The ruin also attracts anti-social behaviour, tramps, homeless people, young drunks and drug takers, upsetting people in neighbouring Parkfield.

Stockton Borough Council owns the church, which is a Grade II listed building. It costs the council about £100,000 a year to secure it from anti-social visitors, while to stabilise the walls and re-roof it for any new use, would cost £1.1m.

Demolition, the majority choice of the survey, would cost the council about £57,000.

Groups favouring its protection include Tees Archaeology and Cleveland and Teesside Local History Society and the Remembering Thornaby Group.

However, the level of response to the survey was so low and possibly unrepresentative, the council's corporate management team plans to postpone a final decision. Interest in returning the survey was low.

Before a decision is made the council cabinet is recommended to pursue further possible uses from other groups and find ways of transferring maintenance responsibility to other organisations.

Bob Harbron, amateur historian with the Norton Heritage Group, said: "Sadly, this concern about the church has come far too late. The church is crumbling fast, with heaps of rubble after rainstorms.

"It will be far too expensive to rebuild from the foundations up. It's yet another example of Stockton's disappearing heritage."

He said more could have been done to save the soon-to-be-demolished domed Baptist Tabernacle, to make way for the Wellington Square shopping complex.