Hundreds of jobs are coming to North Yorkshire as the bioscience and business revolution gathers pace.

Developers say they expect the new Northminster Business Park at Poppleton to bring 100 new jobs - and have revealed they are in talks with a major company considering setting up its headquarters there.

The Government has confirmed that almost 140 jobs are to be transferred from Norwich to the Central Science Laboratory, between Malton and York.

The developments at Poppleton, on land formerly owned by Challis garden centre, come after Piccadilly-based Northminster Properties struck a deal with City of York Council.

The company was granted permission to build an extra 27,000 square metres of units on land already acquired at Northfield Lane on condition that it terminated an existing deed on the land, which could have allowed it to build over the whole site.

Since Northminster's takeover of the 12-acre plot early last year, 60,000 square feet of the buildings have already been converted into units varying from 3,000 to 36,000 square feet for use by manufacturing and distribution firms.

Its developers are confident the new investors will revive the local economy and bring more employment to the city outskirts. "It is a smashing place to work. We have added a great deal of landscape to that which was already there," said managing director Martin Burgess today.

"It is a very green open site in the middle of the countryside and unlike many other city business parks the buildings are not jammed against each another."

Upper Poppleton City Councillor and Planning Committee member Quentin Macdonald welcomed the deal as a "fair compromise."

Agriculture Minister Jack Cunningham's announcement that 137 staff, including 109 scientists, would be moved next year from East Anglia to the CSL at Sand Hutton was hailed by Ryedale MP John Greenway as the "final piece in the bio-science jigsaw".

But York MP Hugh Bayley said the decision was only the first stage in a three-part package of proposals put to the Government by the York Bioscience Initiative.

"We would also like to see a new research centre built to investigate new food technologies and seed-bed units for small bioscience projects."

Dr Cunningham said the move would improve CSL's ability to compete for public and private sector work after cuts in the research and development budget had led to it being under-utilised. <!C-#include virtual="/ep/newsfooter.html"

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