A COMPANY making polyurethane foam products for the car industry wants to move to a fruit store in Hartlip, near Sittingbourne.

Canadian-owned Intier Automotive Interiors of Dickey Lane, Lenham, near Maidstone, wants to set up a 145,000 sq ft site at the Sheerness Produce Terminal cold store site in Spade Lane. Imported fruit has been stored there since it was built several years ago.

The application must pass the stringent controls of the Pollution Prevention and Control (England and Wales) Regulations 2000. In its planning application to Swale Borough Council, the company says that emissions "are expected to be below detectable limits" and that there will be "no foreseeable significant effects on the environment".

Environmentalist and Swale council's new leader Cllr John Stanford (Lib Dem) said: "There have been moves in the past to change the use of the huge cold store site. It was given permission to be used as a fruit terminal but locals were always concerned that it could become an industrial estate. Our planning team at the council will look at this application extremely carefully and it will come before councillors as a change of use."