6,000 tonnes of volatile fertiliser application

Planners have received a request for "Hazardous Substance Consent for storage of 6,000 tonnes of Ammonium Nitrate based fertiliser."

The explosive properties of Ammonium Nitrate fertiliser were used by the IRA it to wreak havoc during its thirty year campaign.

Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh also used "Annie" to make the bomb which killed 168 people in the American mid-west in 1995 whilst Afghan police officers and US soldiers discovered half a million pounds of Ammonium Nitrate last November in Kandahar.

The fertilizer is used by Pashtun rebels to make the overwhelming majority of homemade bombs in the war-torn southern provinces of Afghanistan.

Such is the nature of the fertiliser that the Heath and Safety Executive (HSE) has produced a security document in conjunction with the National Counter Terrorism Security Office concerning the storage of the compound.

The document seeks to offer "practical and cost effective guidance, in line with HSE safety recommendations, to prevent the unlawful acquisition of ammonium nitrate from quarries, mines and opencast sites."

"It is recommended that sites using AN for blasting purposes should consider carefully the acquisition and storage of the product. Coordinating deliveries of AN with blasting operations should allow you to limit the amounts of AN that are required to be stored at the site.Where possible, existing stocks of AN should be depleted before fresh stocks are acquired."