A SPECULATIVE development on land in York is to go ahead after city council bosses approved plans for a new £2.5 million business park.

The move showed confidence in York’s business community, said agent Richard Flanagan, after the recession had stalled speculative development in recent years, with developers only building offices which they have pre-let to a ready and waiting occupier.

Rose Centre Business Park is expected to house about 18 units in total at the back of the existing York Business Park in Nether Poppleton, with car parking and cycle storage.

The planning consent is for the first phase of eight industrial and warehouse units, which will range in size from 113 sq metres to 285 sq metres.

The plans have been submitted by Garry Barker, managing director of Rose Centre Business Park Limited, and a local developer with schemes in Ripon and elsewhere in the local area, who bought the land in October last year.

Following approval of the scheme the developer has put out a tender for the construction of the scheme.

Mr Flanagan, of Flanagan James Property Consultants, said they hoped to start on site as soon as possible, before the end of February, with a view to completing in six months in July or August.

Mr Flanagan, who is marketing the scheme alongside GVA in Leeds, said they had already had interest in the scheme from businesses wanting to move in. “We have two interested parties who have been waiting for us to get planning consent, so we’re very close to finalising an agreement of terms with them.

“We want to crack on and get things like this moving to help the economy,” he said.