CAMPAIGNERS battling to save a doomed auditorium and an area's live theatre, claim they are being kept in the dark.

Stockton Stage Society says a meeting with Stockton Borough Council, which plans to bulldoze the Billingham Forum leisure and sports complex, Billingham, has not yet been held - despite being requested a year ago.

Society spokesman Roy Lockwood said: "The outlook is very bleak at the moment. We are very disappointed at the lack of progress. We have been trying to get to talk to people, but it's very difficult. We have been waiting for nearly a year."

He said: "We have been promised a meeting with the head of leisure and tourism but we have not got a date."

The Forum is to be flattened and a superstore built on the cleared site. Promoters of the scheme say the buildings have passed their sell-by date. There are plans to build a more modern complex on the site of John Whitehead Park, on the opposite side of the road to the Forum, but as yet, no timescale has been announced.

Society members presented Stockton's Mayor, Councillor Terry Bean, with a 1,500-signature petition protesting at plans to demolition of the theatre, earlier this year.

Award-winning young actor Jamie Bell appeared in an amateur production of Oliver at the Forum Theatre a few years ago. He could be the last to be discovered.

Mr Lockwood said the musical Annie Get Your Gun, to be staged at the Forum early next year, will probably be its last show. There is a question mark over what happens after that. He said demolition of the Forum would be the death of live theatre in that area of Teesside. He said the Arc, at Stockton, was not a realistic option. The nearest theatre would be the Civic, at Darlington.

A Stockton council spokeswoman said: "There will be an appropriate opportunity for discussions once draft proposals have been prepared for the longer term future."