The site occupied by a Milnthorpe haulage business which closed on Christmas Eve will be marketed to dozens of businesses from the New Year.

South Lakeland District Council said it hoped to quickly lure another firm to take over buildings used by WRM Logistics Paperlink Limited, which went into liquidation in December.

More than 100 jobs were lost with the closure of the company, which operated 65 vehicles from part of the former Libby's site.

The council's economic development manager Richard Greenwood said the B2 and B8 site offered warehousing and general use.

In January, it would be marketed on SLDC's Land and Premises register, a quarterly report which is sent to more than 250 firms and individuals nationwide which have expressed an interest in moving to the area.

The register is offered free of charge to companies, new business start-ups and potential inward investors and gives an availability, tenure and cost of properties for lease or sale in the area.

Mr Greenwood said: "Hopefully we will get someone biting from that," and added that the approximately three-acre site was "tailor-made for haulage firms".

"It would be attractive to those types of business that ply their goods up and down the M6. I would be fairly confident that we will have interest in someone taking space there. I do not think it will stay empty for long," said Mr Greenwood.

He explained that paper makers Henry Cooke, at Beetham, and James Cropper PLC, at Burneside, used the firm to transport goods and would need a replacement haulage firm.

"The nature of the haulage business is such that someone else will fill the niche," said Mr Greenwood. The council is also due to have high-level talks with the North West Development Agency in the New Year about what it can do to see the site occupied.

Optician Alan Baverstock, a member of the Milnthorpe business community and formerly of the chamber of commerce, said not everyone would fully support an identical firm taking over.

Mr Baverstock said: "We are sorry to hear people have lost their jobs at Christmas. I gather that most of them are not from Milnthorpe. There is an opinion that the village has suffered from the number of heavy goods vehicles going through and it would be much nicer, in an ideal situation, that whatever replaces it would not have such a large number of heavy vehicles going to the site."

January 3, 2003 12:00