FLY over the Full Sutton industrial estate and you can see the extent of the potential boom promised by Simon Pocklington.

Banking in his four-seater Cutlass, Mr Pocklington, managing director of RM English & Son, points towards the patchwork quilt of spaces which form the bulk of his firm's empire - and it's a developer's dream.

Of the more than 100 acres owned by his storage and development firm on the land surrounding the former World War Two airstrip, RM English & Son already owns up to 13 acres of existing buildings generating about 70 jobs.

More to the point, 20 of those acres are earmarked for industrial development in the regional strategic plan.

And he has already begun to map out his blueprint for the future.

But after the sky flip landing at his firm's Full Sutton Flying Centre - as always, carefully avoiding overflying Full Sutton prison - Mr Pocklington makes it clear that he wants the business people and developers of North Yorkshire to help him with ideas - or even full-blooded detailed proposals.

"I don't want to rush into this. If I'm going to build speculatively then I want to plan carefully," he says. "And that means taking the views of those who are most likely to benefit into serious account."

If interest in the expansion of the industrial estate has been heightened lately, it is because RM English & Son was responsible for developing there a new 57,000 sq ft purpose-built distribution centre for Sundora, the Pocklington supplier of dried fruits and nuts.

The centre, built at a cost of more than £1 million centralises numerous outside stores used by Sundora, including premises in Hull, Pocklington and York, and accounts for an estimated eight new jobs. The project underscored how central is the estate - just eight miles from York's eastern ring road and with easy links to the A1/M1 or the M62 and M18.

This kind of flexibility of approach can be achieved only through close co-operation between those with needs and those with the wherewithal to achieve.

RM English was formed in the late 1800s and is a long-established traditional agricultural supply firm, at one time owning up to five animal feed mills.

Then from the 1980s the firm decided to diversify and change direction from being purely agricultural to involvement in general storage, logistics, handling and building developments.

It was able to achieve this because much of the land it now owns was bought in a disposal sale from the Ministry of Defence in 1966 when it declared the aerodrome to be surplus to requirements. And it bought additional acres in the vicinity as they became available

Nowadays the firm employs 35 people at its various premises whose head office is on the Full Sutton estate.

Mr Pocklington said: "We have not set a timescale on the blueprint. We want to get it right and carefully adjust it to the demand, but this demand has to be spelled out to us and this is where co-operation from the local business community comes in.

"If anyone wants to phone me with suggestions at 01759 372717 I would be delighted to discuss them."

But anyone who suggests starting a full-blooded cargo and passenger airport on the estate is on to a loser. RM English has obtained a licence only to operate the runway for its private air club and training school.

And given the proximity of Full Sutton prison the aerodrome's status is not likely to grow - at least for the time being...