A FORMER pit town's nationally-renowned music festival has been secured for the immediate future.

Derwentside District Council is to give the Stanley Blues Festival £40,000 - having already given it £45,000 - to see it through to at least 2007.

The one-day festival, which has grown from humble beginnings 13 years ago to an event which attracts top performers and crowds of more than 10,000, used to rely on the council granting funding on a year-by-year basis, often leaving the organisers a short time to book acts.

Stanley Blues Ltd (SBL), which has taken over from the now-defunct Northern Recording in running the festival, says the "legacy payments'' have provided a good platform from which to seek extra funding.

Paul Green, of SBL, said: "Having the council make this substantial commitment shows its support for the event. They have given us the backing we asked them to and you can't say fairer than that. We are in a stronger position than we have been previously.''

The council's executive has heard that an estimated 11,000 attended this year's event, early last month, and that it generated positive Press coverage regionally and nationally as well as providing seasonal employment for performers, technical crew, suppliers and franchisees.

"The music programme maintained the very high standards set in previous years and all the acts were enthusiastically received,'' said the council's acting head of leisure services, Nick Wiggins.

"In conclusion, the 2005 Stanley Blues Festival proved to be another great success and retained its place as a major blues music festival for the district and the wider region."

, rooted in Stanley but attracting visitors from across the UK and abroad.''