Eastleigh planners are to safeguard the site of the famous Mr Kipling cake factory for industry in a bid to stop manufacturing meltdown in the town.

About 650 jobs are set to go when Manor Bakeries switches its operations from its Eastleigh plant to Yorkshire by the end of this year.

Speculation has raged over the site since the bakery giant dropped the bombshell that it was pulling out of the town.

Now civic chiefs are aiming to create new employment to replace jobs that have been lost.

They have drawn up a plan to make sure the bakery business is replaced with a mix of commercial activities including premises for industry, warehousing and a business centre.

There will be small premises, with facilities for research, where people will be able to get on the first rung of the business ladder.

Manor Bakeries will close at the end of the year and the prime Leigh Road site will be available for redevelopment by April 2006.

Fears of the town being hit by a manufacturing crisis have grown since Alstom announced its giant railway works is closing by the end of the year.

Two other key industrial sites in the town have already been replaced by housing.

Hundreds of homes have been built on the former Pirelli site in Leigh Road and the old Sir Joseph Causton printing works off Brookwood Avenue.

Civic chiefs had already poured cold water on any moves to put housing on the Manor Bakeries site, which is close to a motorway embankment, a railway, and is beneath high voltage power lines.

They have pledged that the public will get a chance to have their say on a planning brief.

Eastleigh Council leader Councillor Keith House said: "This has been major employment site for decades in Eastleigh. We are determined that it should remain so for the future.

"It is totally inappropriate for housing but ideally sited for industry. We also want to see starter units to mirror the success of Eastleigh's Wessex House where hundreds of additional jobs have been created."