The North East Chamber of Commerce's Sunderland committee is backing the plan to defy a medieval law which bans a regular market in the city.

The ruling bans a market within a day's donkey ride – about six and two-thirds miles – of an existing market held under royal charter.

South Shields was given permission to hold a market in the 1200s – and South Tyneside District Council has used the law to bar a market in Sunderland city centre.

The chamber committee has been in talks with potential market operators, but needs to resolve the legal situation because any operator's public liability insurance would be invalid if a market was not being held legally.

Chamber committee chairman Mick Thurlbeck, who is leading the challenge told a meeting this week he felt there was a willingness at the top of both South Tyneside and Sunderland Councils to resolve the dispute.

But he believed there were people lower down in both authorities who were less keen.

"Lots of other people want it to go through but we seem to have this log-jam," he said.

Mr Thurlbeck told the meeting he was due to meet with South Tyneside Council chief executive Irene Lucas next week.

"I am very, very positive we will get there in the end," he said.