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Time was finally called on Sunderland's famous old family brewery, Vaux, on Friday 2 July, 1999.

That's when, after three failed management buy-out bids, the brewery closed, 330 people lost their jobs and 162 years of brewing history had its last orders.

The whittling down of the business that had gone on for some time, had speeded up during its death throes. On the last day of the brewery's existence I was there for BBC Newcastle with the brewery's chief executive, Frank Nicholson, as we broadcast live from the site.

Family man

One of the biggest things that struck me at the time, and this is not a romantic, rose-tinted notion that I've dreamt up since, was how Frank Nicholson really knew every single worker who came up to him to shake his hand.

Not only did he know them and their names, but he knew their wives' or husbands' names and their children - and that seemed to be the essence of Vaux. The overwhelming feeling was "family".

The link between brewery and city was so strong that Sunderland football supporters forced a climb-down when the old Vaux logo on the Sunderland team's shirts was being replaced by Swallow Hotels in a new shirt sponsorship deal.

Vaux brewery in 1947

The Swallow Group - the parent company owning Vaux in Sunderland, and Ward's brewery in Sheffield - had not been forgiven by many Sunderland supporters for scrapping the Vaux brewery to focus on its core business of hotels, pubs and restaurants.

In the end, whether that re-focusing had been a deliberately smart business move or not, just four months after Vaux closed, The Swallow Group itself was taken over by Whitbread plc who rebranded Swallow's 38 hotels as Marriot.

Bedraggled and derelict site

Until its closure the Vaux Brewery, through sight, sound, smell and taste, had held a central place, in every sense of the word, in Sunderland.

Physically, that central place is now a 15-acre bedraggled and derelict site, bounded by the river Wear, Gillbridge Avenue and St Mary's car park.

It's been an empty eyesore for nearly 10 years although the site's market potential was quickly spotted by Tesco who snapped it up soon after the brewery's closure for about £13m.

Tesco still owns the site, despite keen interest from the urban regeneration company, the Sunderland arc, and it's the stand-off between the two which has been blamed by some for the development deep freeze ever since.

Tesco wants to build a supermarket there as a central part of a mixed development and the arc nurses a vision of a buzzing business hub for the city - a jobs-led mixed development with hotels, shops, offices and apartments.

In the meantime public inquiries have come and gone.

Dream scheme

The Sunderland arc, who do not own the site at this point, was told after one public inquiry that it could build its dream scheme - a master plan drawn up in 2002 by architect Piers Gough.

At the same time there was an inquiry into the UDP - the city council's unitary development plan - a planning blueprint governing the kind of development allowed on that site.

The UDP said that the Vaux site had to be employment led, not simply an extension to the shopping core of the city and that view was confirmed by the government inspector at the public inquiry.

All that seemed to be bad news for Tesco's hopes for the site it owned and, meanwhile, the Sunderland arc made unsuccessful offers to buy it from them.

The arc has threatened to use a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) if necessary to get its hands on the site and get things moving, but applying for a CPO would delay development still further.

And so the Vaux story continues to run and run as freely as a barrel of beer down a steep hill.

The latest twists are that in September 2008, Sunderland arc advertised for any developers interested in the job of regenerating the old brewery site to get in touch.

Tesco announced almost immediately that it's applying for the job.

If you worked at the Vaux brewery, or know someone who did, get in touch and let us know what you think:

Artist impression of the Vaux site

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