Plan for new business and retail park

COUNCILLORS are to be given a presentation on plans to replace the former UK headquarters of a US technology firm with a major business and retail park.

Agilent Technologies wants to redevelop its former South Queensferry office site with a development featuring retail, office and business units, cafes, bars and restaurants.

Senior figures from the company, which was formed in 1999 as a spin-off of Hewlett-Packard - will give a presentation at tomorrow's development management committee meeting ahead of submitting a formal application for the development of the Scotstoun Avenue site.

The site is next to Queensferry High School and the main east cost rail line.

In a pre-application report, John Bury, the council's head of planning, said any non-business use would have to be fully justified as the site is earmarked for business use in the Rural West Edinburgh Local Plan.

He also said that the company would have to show that the site was capable of being developed for the mixed uses proposed, and that they are compatible with each other.