HADLEIGH based company Cookson and Zinn Limited is threatening to move abroad with the loss of up to 70 jobs if it cannot sell its land.The company, which manufacturers storage tanks and pressure vessels, has been in Pound Lane, Hadleigh for nearly 40 years.

HADLEIGH based company Cookson and Zinn Limited is threatening to move abroad with the loss of up to 70 jobs if it cannot sell its land.

The company, which manufacturers storage tanks and pressure vessels, has been in Pound Lane, Hadleigh for nearly 40 years.

In a recent planning meeting it said it had grown out of the land it was now occupying and needed larger premises nearer to Ipswich town centre and wanted to sell the premises to a housing developer.

But this was strongly opposed by the planning committee who said the area had to be kept as industrial premises.

On hearing this news a company spokesman told the meeting that if the company could not sell to the housing developer it may be forced to move abroad and leave its staff without jobs.

Back in May the company announced it was preparing to move out of Hadleigh because of a need to expand and because of difficulties with transporting the huge tanks along tiny country lanes.

At the time, chairman John Boudry, had said the move would increase the workforce by up to 15 to 20 per cent.

He said: "Once we sent a couple of tanks out which took longer to get to the A12 than they did to get to London." The company had applied to Babergh District Council for planning permission to convert the Hadleigh site of approximately 7.5 acres to a housing estate and hoped to finance the move by the sale of the land.

But the application posed a dilemma for planners Babergh which has a policy of trying to keep employment in rural areas.

The site's drawback of the inadequate access road could equally prove a problem if the land were to be used for housing.

At the time Mr Boudry said his company would be working with Babergh in seeking a solution and he hoped that it would be possible for Cookson Zinn Limited to move to a new site within 12 to 18 months.

Nobody from the company was today available to comment.