THE opening party for a club for swingers has been postponed, while the owners meet police chiefs and council bosses.

Last week, our sister paper, The Northern Echo, revealed that the former King's Head Hotel in Stanley is to re-open as The Love Shack, a private members' club for wife-swapping and group sex.

The opening party was due to take place on Friday, October 31. But Rob Rostron and Viv Archer, the couple behind the venture, have postponed the opening in a bid to placate a rising tide of opposition.

Mr Rostron said: "We could open tomorrow if we wanted to, we have nothing to hide and we want any issues resolved, so we have put back the opening party by two or three weeks."

He met for crisis talks with planning chiefs at Derwentside District Council on Tuesday. Council leader Alex Watson said: "We feel we have been deceived and these people have not been honest with us."

Last year the council granted permission for the site, believing that it was going to be a leisure club. A team of six officers are working on the case and are consulting barristers, to check the planning application was legal. But the owners believe that, because it is a private club, it is operating within the law.

"If sex in a hotel is illegal, then we would have to close down every hotel," said Mr Rostron.

"This is a private, discreet world for adults. We have taken a rat-infested, derelict building and transformed it."

Archer and Rostron Ltd bought the four-storey property, in the High Street, for £46,000 last year.

More than 200 people have already signed up to use its nine themed rooms and two bondage dungeons.

Ward councillor Claire Vasey started a petition calling for its closure and has collected 600 names.

An emergency meeting of the council's development control committee will be next Thursday, at 12.30pm in Consett Civic Centre.