Edinburgh Science Park Unveils Expansion Plans

02 January 10

Pentlands Science Park has announced plans to extend their site next to the Bush Estate near Penicuik, just outside Edinburgh. Pentlands Science Park, which opened in 1995 is the home of the Moredun Group.

However, the Science Park has also been successful in attracting a further 20 commercial companies to relocate to its site, and the park has been over 95% occupied since 2002. This success has led Moredun to consider a Phase 2 expansion of the site.

Twenty acres of Moredun's New Milton Farm, which adjoins the science park, were adopted in the Midlothian Local Plan in 2008 for biotechnology development. An outline planning application for this land was passed by Midlothian Council's Planning Committee earlier this month. Moredun now hopes to prepare a detailed planning application for the first new building in Phase 2 which is likely to be a multi-occupation building suitable for SME's (small to medium enterprises) in the biotechnology sector.

George Walker, Site Manager of Pentlands Science Park, commented,

"Pentlands Science Park has been very successful over the last 15 years with consistently high occupancy rates and around 450 people employed on the site. The grant of the outline planning consent is an important first step towards growing the park to provide additional accommodation for existing and new tenants, predominantly involved in the life science sector."

The existing presence of Moredun, along with the nearby development of the new Roslin Institute building and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Science and SAC, the Bush Estate area will become one of the leading global centres for animal research and this is likely to create future commercial spin out companies and attract new companies to the area. Additionally, Pentlands Science Park and Moredun are stakeholders in the Edinburgh Science Triangle initiative which seeks to raise Edinburgh's profile as a world a world leading location for science and technology.

Source: Nexxus