THE chief executive of the regeneration company behind the Lomondgate development believes hundreds of extra jobs can be attracted to the site before the end of the decade.
David Hastings, from the non-profit Strathleven Regeneration Community Interest Company, was speaking after the latest economic impact study on the area, close to the A82 by Dumbarton, was published.
The research showed Lomondgate, set up following the closure of the J&B whisky bottling plant and the loss of 470 jobs in 2000, is now supporting more than 700 jobs and has attracted £62 million of capital investment.
Tenants at the business park include the BBC, which uses a studio facility to film River City and other shows, and FTSE-100 temporary-power supply business Aggreko, which moved into its £22m manufacturing and office block last year.
The adjacent services area has a Premier Inn, Brewers Fayre and Costa Coffee – the first drive-through of its type in Scotland –while a housing development has seen 200 homes completed or being built out of a masterplan for 340.
The economic-impact study suggests Lomondgate has the scope to support around 1900 jobs by 2019 and Mr Hastings confirmed work is being done to try to meet that ambitious target.
He said: "The additional jobs will come from enhancing the Lomondgate services which we are keen for in time to become destination services that people choose to break their journey at and also through expansion of the business park."
Mr Hastings believes the services site has scope for a retail and food development along the lines of the popular House of Bruar in Perthshire and a more upmarket boutique hotel to stand alongside the Premier Inn.
He said: "It is fantastic having [Costa and Premier Inn owner] Whitbread at the site, but it would be great to have one or two other things that are one-offs or developed by entrepreneurs so they give that distinctiveness to the overall mix of the site.
"There are something like seven million traffic movements on the A82 so everyone who knows the geography knows what a significant stopping-off place it could be for Glasgow and Loch Lomond.
"The other thing we think is there could be some potential for additional hotel accommodation, potentially a boutique hotel or something of that nature which would work well with the business park."
While he admitted developing the remaining 20 acres of industrial land will depend on economic conditions, Mr Hastings believes the current blue-chip client base can help in attracting further tenants.
He said: "There is a flexible masterplan which will evolve in response to occupier demand.
"There is very little speculative development taking place, so our job along with our development partners is to look for and target businesses that might have a strategic rationale for being here rather than somewhere else.
"Being on the doorstep of the national park and with easy access to the city centre and proximity to the airport is pretty compelling."
The study covered the 10-year anniversary of the BBC studio being opened and estimated more than £84m had been invested in programming between September 2002 and 2012 with an additional £135.3m of gross value added to the regional economy.
The BBC has previously signed a lease for the studio to take it through to 2026.
Mr Hastings, who hailed the partnership approach involved in operating Lomondgate with parties such as Diageo, Scottish Enterprise and Walker Group, also indicated there are plans to align Lomondgate with the adjacent Leven Industrial Estate, which has occupiers such as whisky firm Chivas Brothers, to make the area more attractive for business investment.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article