IT was as much a part of the region as the city's football team, and its name will live on long after its logo has been removed from the pubs and hotels which once proudly served its beers.

July 2, 1999, is a date that is engraved in the hearts and minds of every one of the Vaux Brewery's former workers.

The decision by the Swallow Group to close the 162-year-old brewery was taken so that the organisation could concentrate on its hotels business. More than 440 people lost their jobs with the closure.

Former managing director Frank Nicholson, who led an abortive attempt to save Vaux during the months leading up to its closure, still harbours resentment of the way Swallow closed down the plant.

"They were wrong a year ago to close the brewery, and with the benefit of hindsight the decision appears to be even more wrong today," he said.

"My criticism of the directors of the Swallow group lies in their complete failure to grasp the way in which Vaux had been run, and could have continued to run.

"It was part of Sunderland, and there isn't an hour of the day that goes by when I don't think about Vaux and, more importantly, of the people who worked there.

"If anyone had told me in July 1998 that the brewery would close I wouldn't have believed them.

"In the space of the past 12 months a great North-East company has effectively disappeared."

Ironically, the past year saw the architects of Vaux's demise, the Swallow group, itself confined to history, after brewing and leisure giants, Whitbread, bought out the group.

Today, the fixtures and fittings of Vaux are still being sold around Europe with the latest assets heading east to Russia and Lithuania.

More than two-thirds of the equipment on the site has been sold and the closure date is set for the end of August.

In January, Sunderland City Council unveiled its own ideas for the prime location - among them a high-class hotel, a venue for live entertainment, a realigned millennium bridge across the Wear, and shops and restaurants.

They hoped for a development which, in the words of council leader Colin Anderson, "would encourage the return of a vibrant business community".

Six months down the line, the site is still "open to offers", with Whitbread Group confirming it was still looking at options for the land.

Whatever its ultimate fate, to everyone in Sunderland it will always be associated with Vaux and, hopefully, the name will be retained for future generations to remember part of the North-East's industrial past.