A BOSS of a liquid gas company which protestors claim could destroy most of Burnley today accused them of whipping up an hysterical reaction.

Harry Sutton, projects manager at Alta Gas on the town's Heasandford industrial estate, said a leaflet sent to neighbouring Briercliffe residents, warning them of mass evacuation and gas cylinders landing on local schools was misleading and untrue.

Lydgate estate residents will tonight deliver a 650-name petition to councillors calling on them to reject plans to sell off more land to allow the company to extend the LPG gas site recently-acquired from Acewell Gas.

Acewell had existing permission to store 90 tonnes of gas on the site and the move would not involve any extension of gas storage. Councillors will be told the sale of the land would create more jobs for Burnley, bring in extra cash from the disposal, and allow the council to apply conditions and covenants which would tighten up safeguards on the site.

Despite this campaigners claim they are living next to a potential bomb and say any land sale to the company should be rejected.

In a leaflet urging residents to turn up at the town hall to voice opposition, action group members warned the whole of Briercliffe and Burnley General Hospital would have to be evacuated if there was an incident at the present site.

The leaflet, bearing skull and crossbones logos, said there had been problems at other LPG sites -- at Acewell's Hapton site in 1997 when residents had to be evacuated, and at a 60-ton site in Beadale, Yorkshire, where there was a major explosion.

It added: "If this happened at Alta Gas, one of the cylinders could land on any one of our schools."

Group spokesman Marisa Walker said the danger was real and there was no question of scaremongering.

She added: "An extension of the site would just be the first step towards extending the amount of gas storage."

But today Mr Sutton accused campaigners of scaremongering and said the company had always fully co-operated with the Health and Safety Council which had ruled the existing site posed "virtually no risk."

He said the company wanted the land to build a new office to house its Northern headquarters and provide off-road parking for employees -- no LPG would be stored on the additional land.

He added the company had already created 12 new jobs since the Acewell takeover and this would increase to up between 35 and 45 with the extra land, with a real prospect of more jobs if the customer call centre is located in Burnley.

Last month, Independent Group leader Harry Brooks successfully persuaded councillors to withdraw from an earlier plan to sell Alta Gas a three acre site elsewhere on the same industrial estate -- an agreement reached before the takeover of Acewell.

Tonight, he will join residents in urging the regeneration committee to reject officer advice to allow the new sale of land.

He said: "Covenants and conditions can be changed in future. I believe the concern of residents is justified."

A Health and Safety Executive report on LPG storage at Heasandford last year said there was little if any risk to the public -- none that justified refusal of planning permission for storage.