KENT business leaders have voted overwhelmingly to keep the pound. They decisively rejected a motion to adopt the euro at the end of a lively debate at the Marriott Tudor Park Hotel, Bearsted.

The event, hosted by Kent Executive Club and attended by more than 50 people, pitched Jill Cochrane, the television presenter and chairman of the Institute of Directors Kent branch, against Tunbridge Wells solicitor Matthew Knight.

Ms Cochrane, a successful businesswoman, is a passionate supporter of the single European currency, while Mr Knight is a prominent member of Business for Sterling, a group that opposes the euro.

Proposing the motion that "The UK should adopt the Euro currency", Ms Cochrane claimed that sterling was no longer an influential global currency. There had been "practically no resistance" from the French to the loss of the 700-year old franc. "They had more to lose than we have," she said.

She was sad that Britain had missed out on the grand celebration on January 1 when most European Union countries adopted the euro. She claimed the euro would create a "level playing field" for business and put the UK at the centre of European trading links.

"We can't go it alone," said Ms Cochrane. "We have to align with somebody. We've got to align with our strongest trading partners. Let's get in there and run the thing."

Mr Knight countered by claiming the euro would put Britain's economic success at risk. "What is so wrong with our economic situation, with our national control of our currency that we need to scrap it?" he said.

Business for Sterling supported Britain's membership of the EU but did not want to scrap the pound. "We are well advised to sit it out until the benefits are clear and demonstrable," said mr Knight.

He claimed it would cost the nation £35 billion on a "positively dangerous experiment." And he dismissed as "utterly ridiculous" the claim by the Europe minister Peter Hain that opponents of the euro were "enemies of Europe".

He warned that the euro would lead to more bureaucracy and bigger Government. Currency speculators were gunning for the euro and he wanted none of it.

"I don't want George Soros to make billions out of my mother, my children or my unborn grandchildren because that's what will happen if we go into this ridiculous arrangement," he said.

Ms Cochrane retorted: "I am sad when I hear emotive statements from a solicitor who should know better." While accession costs might be high, business and individual travellers would have to pay high exchange rate costs while we stayed outside the eurozone, she said.

"Kent's 45,000 small businesses need the support of a stronger currency that the euro will become very shortly. If we don't go into the euro, we will end up as a little island in influence as well as in size. Do you want that?"

At the end of the debate, 28 people voted to keep the pound and 13 to adopt the euro.

Debate chairman Edwin Boorman, chairman and chief executive of the Kent Messenger Group, paid tribute to the speakers and questioners. "This is the first time I have heard this issue properly argued with sensible points of view," he said.