SCORPIONS which live in a wall at Sheerness Docks are not under threat from developers. Both the docks and Swale Borough Council spokesmen have flatly denied the stories, carried by a national newspaper, that a planning application to build loft apartments on the harbour front has been put forward and that the only colony of scorpions in Britain faced expulsion and possibly extinction.

Maria Clarke for Sheerness Docks said: "Neither the journalist nor the Daily Mail, who carried the story, were in contact with anyone at Sheerness Docks prior to the article. A new developer is going to renovate and upgrade the existing properties that he is purchasing within the Sheerness Docks conservation area.

"The wall is not being knocked down - it is grade two listed so it can't be and why would anyone knock it down when it provides a nice boundary between the houses there and the docks? The only threat to the scorpions is from natural growth of Ivy from the wall which looks attractive but blocks out the sunlight which the scorpions like. Over the last two years the number of scorpions living in the wall has risen from approximately 5,000 to 10,000."

Daily Mail features reporter Richard Pendlebury, who wrote the story which appeared in the Mail on Monday was not available for comment.