A HIGHLY-successful saw firm intends to call the tune if developers want it to move off a controversial village site.

Mr Rob Maxey, of Ernest Bennett Saws, has a thriving factory on the Killinghall Row site at Middleton St George - land which is the target of a bid by Mandale Properties to build two blocks of three-storey flats and 34 houses.

The parish council has objected to the design which puts flats on the roadside entrance to the village and the borough council is holding a site visit next Friday.

Mr Maxey told the D&S Times: "Mandale Properties has purchased the Arctic Milburn site but not the Ernest Bennett land or any of the other sites.

"If it wants to go ahead with its plans it would have to buy our site. I don't want to move out of the area because the majority of our 55 employees are from around Darlington, some from the village.

"We have been here 36 years and we are not closing, that is for sure. We are not going away. We are very busy and act as a feeder for our firm in America."

He said alternative sites in Darlington, some of them privately owned, tended to be expensive.

"We have a prime roadside site where we are and we have another factory just up the road. We don't have to move. It depends on the cost involved and we need to make any offer very strong for the employees."

He said the firm did not want to create problems for the village or the developers.

"But we are certainly not going to move to make it easy for them to develop the site. We would need to get the right compensation to enable us to move elsewhere."

Mr Maxey added: "I have a lot of sympathy with the parish council. I live in the village and I also would like it to be made attractive."

The borough planning committee is expected to decide the issue on Wednesday, September 6