FLATPACK furniture giant Ikea is making a bid to move into the borough.

The Swedish company wants to take over the former Klingers engineering factory site, in Edgington Way, Sidcup, for a new store.

The site is on the borough boundary between Bromley and Bexley and the company has put in planning applications to both councils.

Ikea hopes to demolish the industrial buildings, excluding the listed factory, on the site.

It wants to build a sevenstorey building in its place.

The basement and bottom two floors will contain 975 car parking spaces while the store, which will generate hundreds of new jobs, would be on the upper floors.

The factory building at the front of the site would be transformed into a 72-bedroom hotel with 62 parking spaces.

Agents for Ikea say the firm does not yet have a client for the hotel part of the plan.

An outline application for the store has been made to Bromley Council but plans to create a junction, controlled by traffic lights, at the proposed access in Edgington Way has gone to Bexley Council.

The application is likely to be welcomed by the council, which is keen to improve on the borough's 412 hotel beds as part of the 2012 Olympic bid.

Local economy spokesman Councillor Graham Arthur said: "I was delighted to see this. Ikea is the sort of retailer which can add something to the economy."

The site is next to a supermarket Tesco has been trying to expand since 1999.

Tesco originally planned to take over the Klingers site until a member of the public successfully applied to have the front factory listed as a good example of the industrial architecture of the 1930s.

Tesco then turned its attention to the neighbouring Lancaster Jaguar dealer's site.

Tesco applied to Bromley Council in 2002 to increase the store size by a third and build a new raised car park with a new roundabout at its Edgington Way entrance.

This was refused by Bromley, but the council did leave the way open for a further application from the company.