"PICTURE a Wild West ghost town, totally deserted. If Stanley was in America that is what could have become of it."

Professor of social policy Fred Robinson, of Durham University, has studied extensively the post-war decline of the area's economy and he, along with others, says there will be life in Stanley for generations to come.

Predictions that the closure of pits, now a history story for the area's young, would lead to complete social breakdown have proven unfounded.

Yet the statistics paint a picture of decline. Population in the four Stanley council wards fell from 20,656 in 1971 to 18,284 in 1991, although it is estimated that it has risen by about 200 since then.

Unemployment across Derwentside was 28 per cent in 1982 and is now 6.7 per cent - but all the indications show many jobs are part-time and low paid, and male unemployment remains steady and high.

There is not a single employer in the Stanley area which employs more than 500 people. A survey in September 1999 showed that vacant retail floor space was 24 per cent above the national average.

One of the town's most famous shops, Conroys furniture store, closed just a few months ago.

Professor Robinson explained why that economic retreat did not lead to Stanley becoming a Wild West ghost town.

"It's partly because Government and councils took the humanitarian view that work should go to the workers and not the other way round. That meant state investment and there has clearly been some success.

"The other thing is the car. There are so many people who live in the Stanley area who can simply commute to work.

"A third reason people stay is house prices. It is hard for people to sell up and buy much more expensive properties down south. Then there is simply the fact that people don't want to go, they have an emotional attachment to the North-East.

"A lot of exiles return."

He argued that, despite the bleak statistics, there would be a future for the area.

He said: "The population will continue to age and the process of people commuting to work will continue.

"It will become more of a dormitory area."

Prof Robinson said of the town centre: "There is an air of decline about the place. It needs to shrink. I'm sure the council have ideas, but I think at some point they will have to face up to that."

And, there was always the chance of future success.

"It has always been changing. The population was very small across County Durham in the 19th Century and it changed in a few generations.

"It is changing now and it will in the future, but it will always be there," he said.

Stanley, a place which could soon have major leisure investment on its King's Head fields and bus station, as well as the fact of the major good news of a new swimming pool, is, for now at least, a long way short of a ghost town.