UP TO 50 jobs could be created after plans for a bottle-making plant at Express Dairies in Sheff-ield Park were given the go-ahead.

The blow moulding factory will manufacture plastic bottles used by the dairy, which currently employs about 270 people to bottle and distribute milk.

The new plant will put an end to the need for ten lorry-loads of empty bottles to be brought to the site every day from Milton Keynes.

Lewes councillors who approved the plan said they had been worried by the size of the new building but felt the potential benefits outweighed their concerns.

Coun John James said: "When I first saw the plans I was horrified by the size of the building, but I realise now it will fit in with the rest of the dairy."

Those at the meeting heard making the bottles at the dairy, which is is 2.5 miles from the North Chailey crossroads on the A275, would reduce lorry journeys to the site by 40 per cent - even though Express plans to deliver some of them to another dairy in Ruislip, Midd-lesex.

Coun John Cornwall said: "This is a very large building but I feel the net gain, in jobs and the reduction of heavy lorries on the roads, is well worth it."

Council officers agreed to careful monitoring of any noise created by the bottle plant and a management plan has been put in place for neighbouring Wet Wood, part of which will be lost with the building of the new factory.

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