UP to 3,000 jobs could be created by a £45m development that was given the go-ahead by the Government yesterday.

Vangarde, the York Business Quarter, will be created on a 30-acre site on the north-eastern outskirts of the city.

The work will begin on site early in the New Year and the first of the futuristic offices should be ready for letting in about 12 months' time.

Developers Oakgate (York), a consortium of businessmen and landowners, claim Vangarde will be the premier science-related business park in the North.

Designed to complement York's existing science park at Heslington, it will comprise 450,000sq ft of offices and laboratories on a site just to the south of the Monks Cross retail park and the Huntington Stadium.

The developers claim the project will meet demand from high-tech businesses which otherwise would be forced out of York because of a shortage of suitable accommodation.

"Building on the success of the York's scientists, food technologists and high-tech businesses, Vangarde will provide high-quality accommodation in secure, supported surroundings," said a spokesman. It will also accommodate commercial inward investment and relocation of expanding existing York businesses."

The project will feature purpose-built accommodation with a selection of sites; design and build options to suit specialist individual requirements; and flexible freehold or leasehold packages. A 25,000sq ft building will be built speculatively on the north-eastern corner of the site for a high technology business.

Richard Wood, the local man behind the group that built the Defra headquarters building at King's Pool, York, is a key player in the consortium.

He said yesterday: "Quality office sites are desperately needed, otherwise York will just stagnate and there will be very little inward investment.

"This project, which has been planned for more than seven years, is a real opportunity to prove our credentials as a science city to the world and will also help to relieve the pressure on growing scientific ventures which have nowhere to grow or go - except out of York".

Architect Jim Downes claimed: "The success of this project will endorse York as the Cambridge of the North. Indeed York is outstripping Cambridge, in the area of biosciences and computer sciences.