A NEW business centre in York has been chosen by broadcast personality Noel Edmonds to be "in the loop" for his new national videoconferencing venture.

The House Party star has picked Westminster Business Centre at York Business Park in Nether Poppleton to be one of the 200 centres offering what he describes as low cost, pay-as-you-go high quality videoconferencing facilities.

He promises that all will be in place by Christmas for the launch of his venture, face2face, which he says will cut down on train and aircraft flight costs for corporations and also bring the facility to the man and woman in the street.

Westminster Business Centre was started by Matthew Tearney and wife, Sandra, in April and since they took out the lease on the first floor they have been on a tide of good news.

First came the fact that within four months they smashed their target to rent out all nine offices on that floor within a year.

Now the couple are expanding to the first floor, offering another eight offices from September

Noel Edmonds has already earmarked the meeting room on the ground floor for what will be a venture partnership between face2face and Westminster.

Sandra said: "The equipment is already there, waiting to go live and existing clients have already intimated that they would be making use of it."

Transport Minister Alistair Darling has already promised to back the venture which is likely to take the strain off the train and the roads.

The face2face website promises that the system, which will be membership-based, will have meetings starting from just £50 an hour - "the equivalent of a tank of petrol, a day in the car park at Heathrow or a round trip."

It will also have 1,800 affiliated videoconferencing rooms throughout the world.

The website adds: "Forget worries about being late, missing a connection, losing your way or parking your car at airports. Our meetings are the smarter way to stop unnecessary travel.

"And when you consider the dangers we face travelling today - road traffic accidents, SARS, earthquake, war or terrorism - the benefits of face2face become even more appealing."

Updated: 09:09 Tuesday, August 12, 2003