A SECOND giant newspaper recycling mill is set to create well over 1,000 construction jobs in Kent - but only if Brussels gives the final go-ahead. Aylesford Newsprint has won Government backing for a second mill alongside the M20 at Aylesford, near Maidstone.

The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), a Government agency, chose the Kent-based company as the “preferred bidder” for the £250 million project ahead of Welsh firm Shotton Paper. This coup for Kent means that Aylesford Newsprint will be entitled to a Government grant of up to £20 million.

The project would create 1,200 short-term construction jobs and around 50 permanent jobs. It could also lead to thousands of indirect jobs nationwide and give a much-needed boost to the United Kingdom’s inadequate newspaper and magazine recycling capacity.

But the decision has to be cleared by the European Commission’s competition experts in Brussels and that could take up to six months.

Aylesford Newsprint already has planning permission for a second mill from Tonbridge and Malling council. But it expires next summer and company chiefs hope for a decision well before then. They will not press ahead with costly detailed planning until they know the outcome.

WRAP’s decision follows years of work by Aylesford Newsprint and Jonathan Shaw, MP for Chatham and Aylesford. Mr Shaw, chairman of Parliament’s All-Party Group for the Paper Industry, has lobbied Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior ministers on behalf of the Kent firm.

He said it was good news for paper manufacturing in Kent. There was more paper and board manufacture in his constituency than anywhere else in the country but it had been in decline for some time.

It was also good for the environment. “We consume more newspapers and magazines than any other county in Europe and we import 60 per cent of the newsprint we use.

“So it would not only be good locally and for the environment, but also for our balance of payments.”

Donald Charlesworth, Aylesford Newsprint’s company secretary, said the workforce was delighted. “It’s good for us, it’s good for Kent and also very good for the United Kingdom, especially the households who will see more of their garbage put to good use by recycling.”