A council has decided to sell its shares in a controversial animal research laboratory.

West Sussex County Council released a statement last night saying it would sell its £115,000 stake in Huntingdon Life Sciences hours after an Argus story revealed the investment.

Huntingdon almost had its licence revoked after an investigation by the Home Office in 1997 and the news of the shares provoked anger from animal rights campaigners.

A spokesman for the council, which purchased the shares as an investment for its pension portfolio, said: "The County Council Investment Panel has directed its pension fund managers to consider the effects of

social, environmental and other ethical

issues when deciding whether to buy or sell investments for the pension fund."

"Our fund managers are trying to sell our shareholding in Huntingdon Life Sciences."

The news the shares are to be sold follows threats by campaign group Stop Huntingdon Cruelty to demonstrate outside the council's offices in Chichester.

The Tory-run council's stake in the laboratory, which is the largest

animal testing laboratory in Europe, made up

0.01 per cent of its

pension fund investment.

The decision by West Sussex comes after a recent announcement by the Labour Party that it too had pulled out of their investment in the company.

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