THE owners of an empty building in the centre of Earby have said they are in no rush to sell the site.

The large building, erected on the former Victoria Mill site in the early 1990s, has never been occupied and is currently up for sale.

Originally it was built as a supermarket but there were no retail operators willing to take it on and it was eventually bought by Geoffrey Sutton, executive chairman of Foulridge-based Weston Electrical Units Ltd.

Weston's obtained planning permission for light industrial use, but this has never been implemented.

When the Herald spoke to the company recently, Mr Sutton said the site had been bought with the intention of using it for some of Weston's operations, but with the company's rapid expansion over the past few years, it was now far too small for its needs.

Speaking this week, Mr Sutton said he hoped to sell the site for light industrial use, which would not affect existing retail outlets in the town.

However, he added that the company was in no rush to sell the site and that they were waiting for the right offer from the right sort of business to come along.

Meanwhile Weston's also dismissed rumours that they were in the process of applying for Lottery cash so they could use the Leeds Liverpool canal to transport their goods to factories in Barnoldswick.

Mr Sutton told the Herald there was absolutely no truth in the rumours.

He said: "The rumours have started because we are currently negotiating to buy a piece of land by the canalside in Barnoldswick and expand our operations, as we have reached saturation point at Foulridge."

Mr Sutton added that although they would love to use the canal more, there was no chance the company would be transporting goods in this way to the proposed new factory, or to other factories they dealt with in the town such as Rolls-Royce.

He said: "Because the parts we make are so small, a small van would hold more than a million pounds worth of what we make. Using the canal would be totally impractical.

"Once we have the parts finished we want them delivered as quick as possible and we want a rapid way of doing that.

"Also less than one per cent of what we make goes to Rolls-Royce in Barnoldswick."