Wellcome's biotech park could move abroad

After a meeting of the board of governors, the Wellcome Trust has abandoned its plans to extend the Hinxton biotechnology park in the wake of the government's decision to back South Cambridgeshire District Council's refusal to grant planning permission. A statement made it clear that 'The Trust will now explore alternatives which might enable it to achieve its original objectives. Over the last two weeks, we have received many approaches from within the UK and overseas and we will now respond to these'. The decision by the Wellcome Trust will come as a major blow to Hinxton which could have expected the creation of 1,000 new jobs if the £100m project had gone ahead. The Trust had wanted to create 40,000 square metres of accommodation for biotech companies to enable them to commercialise the research taking place in the genome campus' three laboratories. It has argued that the UK needs to encourage the 'cluster-style' development that has characterised the growth of the new industries in the US and elsewhere. Such centres include the American Whitehead Institute in Boston, Stanford Business Park, a centre in Jena near Leipzig in Germany and a state-backed operation in France.