Kent County Council has identified an alternative site for a transport super depot in west Kent but says it may not be up and running for two years - four years after a major shake-up in its highways department was first agreed.

The council has declined to identify where the location is.

KCC was forced in April to abandon its controversial plan to build a depot at Wrotham, alongside the A20 London Road, shortly before a High Court action brought by opponents of the scheme.

That decision meant the county council’s long-running re-organisation of its highways department, already severely delayed, faced a further hold-up.

Cllr Keith Ferrin, the politician in charge of highways, said officials were in negotiations with the site’s owners and that if the deal went ahead, there were unlikely to be major planning hurdles to overcome.

However, he declined to say where it was. “We’ve found a potential site. I have been to look at it and officers are now negotiating but I do not know what stage they have got to. It was a site that was on the open market. I do not think there will be the same planning problems. There is no question of that but it certainly should be do-able more quickly than the Wrotham site.”

It is understood the site was previously used for commercial and industrial purposes and would not require permission for a change in use.

The depot is a crucial element in a re-organisation of a department that was first agreed at the end of 2006. One of the two super depots planned opened in Ashford this summer.