DIGGERLAND wants to expand by moving to a site five times the size of its present one in the Medway City Estate.

Plant company HE_Services wants to move its adventure park out of Strood to adjoin the Medway Valley leisure park in Cuxton. Millionaire founder Hugh Edeleanu said: "We can get several hundred customers a day and we want to accommodate all of them. They will also find it more attractive to come to an area with a leisure park, which is also easily reachable, than an industrial estate."

Diggerland, which also has parks in Durham and Devon, is the only firm of its kind in the world, allowing both adults and children to operate JCB diggers for fun under supervision. It has put in a planning application to Medway Council to move to take over a landfill site under restoration next to Medway Valley Park.

Since the theme park opened in April 2000 visitor figures have soared to up to 1,000 a day on bank holidays and 600 a day at weekends. The site it has chosen at the Martin Earl Work Pits is 20 acres — five times the size of its present base at Whitewall Road.

The cost of the move could be £250,000 to £500,000, depending on the level of work to prepare the site demanded by council planning conditions.

Diggerland sprang from Mr Edeleanu's company HE Services and is based at its site.