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View Synopsis AMANDA FISHER reports.

A narrow country lane in the heart of the Weald hides one of Kent's best-kept agricultural secrets. Down this driveway lies the former East Malling Research Station, formerly a government-backed institution boasting a long and internationally-renowned history in experimental work on fruit trees.

These days that scientific research is done by an independent company, East Malling Research, on a site covering more than two hundred hectares on the outskirts of Maidstone.

DR COLIN GUTTERIDGE, CEO, East Malling Research: 'East Malling Research is the leading institute in the United Kingdom for fruit science. It has a fantastic international reputation and it has a ninety-year-old history, and it's developed many of the techniques and methods that are used by the fruit industry world-wide, and we have 140 active international collaboration with university departments and research institutes worldwide, so we have a significant reputation.'

That reputation drew Colin Gutteridge to East Malling Research eighteen months ago. During his short time at the helm he's had to cope with a controversy that has rocked the whole county. It involved the future of another highly-acclaimed national fruit collection based at Brogdale near Faversham. A proposal to close Brogdale and relocate its collection to East Malling split opinions across Kent.

DR COLIN GUTTERIDGE: 'We believed that putting the national fruit collection on our site would enable us to establish an educational attraction based around the science that we deliver that would make the collection more accessible to a wider range of people.'

Arguments for and against this and other bids were considered over many months. Eventually DEFRA, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ruled against East Malling, with Brogdale's collection remaining at Faversham.

COLIN: 'I have to say congratulations to the people who've won the bid, but the science part of the bid is with the University of Reading, so actually Kent loses out overall, because although the trees are remaining at Brogdale, the science work within the bid is moving to the University of Reading, moving away from Imperial College at Wye and moving away from East Malling. So actually I don't really believe this is a win for Kent, I think it's a 2-1 defeat if you want to put it in football analogy. And the moving of the collection to East Malling would have maintained much more scientific research within Kent than will happen in the future.'

While DEFRA's decision to leave the National Fruit Collection at its present site in Faversham was disappointing, its action in awarding the collection's research contract to an academic institution outside Kent was a particularly bitter blow to East Malling Research.

COLIN: 'Although we're a long-standing research institute, most of our funding has historically come from government, and it is in steep decline. And there are very real questions over our medium and long-term survival as a research institute.'

Scientific research is the life-blood of organisations like East Malling Research.

COLIN: 'Well, currently our turnover is about £6 million per annum. There's a large infrastructure of research buildings and established orchards and so on, so although the cost of running the place will come down, you're still talking about four to five million pounds just to have an establishment of this sort to do the work that it does. This decision is not helpful in that respect because it closes down avenues of commercial and technical development that would have been possible if the collection had moved here.'

East Malling Research may have failed this time, but it will get a second chance to submit another bid when the collection comes up for tender in five years time. Until then, the company is busy getting a new business plan underway.

COLIN: 'We intend to go in a very commercial direction, developing the resources of the estate to help support our scientific activities. I think East Malling Research is still vital to the development of the fruit industry, so we're doing things like planting the largest organic apple orchard in the UK, developing a food business, developing our conference and hospitality business, so we've got many things to do, but the fact that we didn't win this bid is a significant blow to our future.'