A LANDSCAPE design and management boss has moved his firm into York - and immediately set his sights on winning business at the city's rapidly-expanding university that his grandfather pioneered.

Patrick James, managing director of The Landscape Agency, which has moved from Thirsk into bigger premises at Lancaster House in James Nicholson Link, Clifton Moor, is the grandson of the late Lord James of Rusholme, who for 12 years until 1973 was the first vice-chancellor at the University of York.

The new arrival is carefully watching the outcome of a controversial outline planning application, which will effectively double the size of the residential campus at the university, giving it a rural feel with landscaping, a lake and woodlands.

Mr James said: "It would be wonderful if we could make a contribution to the university that my grandfather helped to found."

With more room at Clifton Moor, Mr James hopes to double his firm's £500,000 turnover in the next 18 months, and raise the staff from 12 to 20, and already he is recruiting more landscape architects.

Apart from the expansion plans at the university, Mr James is encouraged by other good prospects for business at York, with development of Monks Cross on the outskirts of the city and the York Central project behind the railway station in the pipeline.

There were other reasons for being persuaded to come to Clifton Moor by york-england.com, the region's inward investment board. "With clients as far apart as London and Northumberland we felt that York's position and excellent transport links offered an ideal location for our new headquarters," he said.

Mr James is not a landscape architect himself, although he is the agronomist and landscape historian, who for four years advised the Heritage Lottery Fund on purchase and use of land. He was responsible for providing direct funding to restore Victorian parks in the north of England, including the £1 million for Rowntree Park in York.

Updated: 11:19 Wednesday, November 24, 2004