Major efforts are to be made to retain key industrial sites at East Cowes, which could be lost under cutbacks by GKN Aerospace Services.

The Isle of Wight Council has hit out at suggestions that GKN's huge north seafront site - including the Columbine, Medina and Maresfield works - might not be used for employment purposes in the future.

The council's stand follows mounting concern that the prime site might be lost to residential or mixed use, as a result of GKN's announcement last week that 650 of its 1,500-strong workforce are to be made redundant.

Paul Airey, the council's planning policy manager, said any talk of the threatened sites having uses other than for employment were pure speculation.

"As far as the council is concerned, the top priority is to find new job opportunities in the town for up to 650 employees facing redundancy. It is with this aim firmly in our mind that we and the Isle of Wight Partnership will be opening talks with GKN over its future intentions for the sites it proposes to close, including the Columbine Works overlooking Cowes harbour."

He was backed by council leader Mrs Shirley Smart, who said:"We want to work with the company and the community to achieve something that is for the good of the people of East Cowes and the Island.

"As the GKN properties form such an integral part of East Cowes town centre, it is clearly sensible to work towards a planning brief for the whole area.

"Any suggestion at this time that there could be a change for any of the industrial land is just conjecture."

Mr Airey added that any plans for mixed use on one or more of the vacated sites would only be for consideration in the longer term, and as part of a comprehensive planning brief for East Cowes.

"There would need to be a co-ordinated approach to such a review,involving a wide range of organisations and interests, as well as Isle of Wight councillors and planning officers," he said.

GKN Aerospace Services announced last Thursday that it is to shed almost half its 1,500-strong workforce, and close its north site to concentrate at the nearby Falcon Yard and Osborne Works.

The mass redundancies were blamed mainly on the terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11.

The redundancies were forecast for several months because of the downturn in the civil aerospace market.

The remaining sites at East Cowes are to continue as centres of excellence for engineering, systems integration, composite manufacture, major sub-assemblies and nacelle structures.