The directors of Bermuda Cement Company (BCC) are considering complaining to the Island's new Ombudsman about the Government's handling of its lease renewal, it was revealed last night.

The firm, which has supplied bulk cement to Bermuda's construction industry for four decades, has been wrangling with the West End Development Corporation (Wedco) ? a Government quango ? over its site at Dockyard for the past five years.

Company director Jim Butterfield claimed yesterday that the Government had now turned the tussle both personal and racial and was refusing to sit down and speak with him.

"A black Bermudian said to me the other day that this is because I'm a white Butterfield," he said. "And I think it is. It's gotten so personal."

The Government has asked BCC to move from its current 22,000 square foot site to another piece of land about 300 yards away at Dockyard.

The company's directors want to stay at the existing site and revamp it but say they will move if they are given a 20-year lease at the new location, which they claim they would need to spend $5 million on.

Wedco has offered only a ten-year lease as it plans to build housing on the plot at some point.

BCC's current lease was extended for a year at the eleventh hour last December, as Mr. Butterfield was on the point of closing down the site.

This week, the Island's cement supplies ran out ? a crisis which Mr. Butterfield claimed was caused by his having to start winding down the business last year.

He said until BCC's future was known he could not operate the company properly. Mr. Butterfield said he and the company's two other directors, John White and Stella Winstanley, approached Ombudsman Arlene Brock last November but did not make a formal complaint at the time.

He said that going back to the Ombudsman was "certainly something the directors have talked about".

"What avenues do we have in a democratic world?" he asked.

"We thought by now we would maybe have a lease document in front of us and then we could go full steam ahead to move to this new location and they could make plans for housing.

"Instead we are just in this same endless cycle. We are at loggerheads ? to say 'stalemate' sounds like Bermuda Cement Company won't budge. We want to budge. We want a lease."

Works and Engineering Minister Sen. David Burch revealed on Wednesday that the Government was negotiating with another company interested in leasing a separate piece of land at Dockyard from Wedco for cement importation.

Victor Roberts, the man behind the company, told last night: "I'm negotiating with them but I can't say much more than that. I'm just negotiating on a piece of land.

"We are going to be coming out on Monday and Tuesday and saying what we are doing. What we are doing is nothing to do with him (Mr. Butterfield); we are not taking his lease or contract from him. But it will be competition. Competition is a good thing."

The company is believed to be interested in building three silos on the Government land at Dockyard with storage capacity for 6,000 tons of cement.

A Ministry source last night refuted the claim of racism. "The proposed competitor is white so the allegations are baseless," said the source.

Mrs. Winstanley said the Government was keeping secret details about the possible competitor for BCC, which employs four people at the Dockyard site and imports about 32,000 tons of cement a year.

"We cannot understand why," she said.

Neither Sen. Burch nor Ms Brock could not be contacted for comment last night. Works and Engineering Ministry spokeswoman Nea Talbot said she could not comment on Mr. Butterfield's claims.