UP to 300 jobs look set to be created at a new industrial estate after its owners won a £900,000 grant to develop the site.

The Government’s Growing Places scheme has granted the funding under the Government’s Growing Places scheme to create 183,000sq ft of space beside the 42-acre Melmerby Industrial Estate, near Ripon, less than a mile from junction 50 of the A1M.

York, North Yorkshire and East Ridings Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) said the ten-acre AIM 50 development would provide desperately needed space to meet demand for space near the trunk road.

The LEP, which submitted a plan to boost the area's economy to ministers, said it was focusing on helping existing small and micro businesses grow.

LEP chairman Barry Dodd said: “This development is part of our LEP’s ongoing ambition to help businesses create jobs and deliver economic growth.

"The business park’s expansion will allow businesses to grow into or start up within new industrial space and provide up to 300 new jobs.

"Ultimately, it will help to ensure that North Yorkshire has the capacity to support the growing demands of its businesses.“

Site owner Potter Logistics has been granted the funding to open up the development by constructing the site access roads, demolishing existing buildings, and further upgrading existing power and utility supplies.

Businesses sited at the industrial estate range from pharmaceuticals firms to animal feed producers.

A spokeswoman for the firm, which started in 1965 as Topcliffe Transport Company with a single 10-tonne truck carrying grain and fertiliser on local routes and bought the Melmerby site in 1972, said: "It is a very exciting development for us.

"It is a long-held ambition and it is great that it is finally going to be built."

Architects WPL Consulting has designed and secured consent for the scheme with units ranging from 6,000 sq ft to 130,000 sq ft, which are available for sale or to let.

There has already been interest in space between 10,000 sq ft and 60,000 sq ft from both national and local operators.

The new units will offer a space to suit a range of manufacturing and distribution uses, as well as providing dedicated car parking and yard spaces.

The site also offers unique benefits, such as substantial available power for manufacturing areas, as well as secure hard standing storage areas.