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The UK government has rejected a proposed £100 million (US$160 million) extension to the Wellcome Trust's Genome Campus in Hinxton, Cambridgeshire.

The proposal was seen as an important test of how the British government would balance its commitment to biotechnology ‘clusters’ with its promises to protect the rural environment.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has been emphasizing the importance of such clusters, as well as stronger links between universities and industry, since the launch of its policy paper on competitiveness at the end of last year (see Nature 396, 714; 1998).

The decision followed an extended — and bitter — battle between the Wellcome Trust and local planning authorities over the development of the site, which is home to the Sanger Centre for gene sequencing, the European Bioinformatics Institute and the Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre. The trust wants space to commercialize research from these laboratories. It says that locating biotech companies alongside researchers will help to generate ideas and make it easier for scientists who go into business to maintain links with their former laboratories.

But the proposals met with stiff opposition from the local authority and residents of nearby villages over the scale of the development, which was said to be a threat to the rural environment. The local authority argued that space for ‘spin-out’ companies already exists on the district's many science parks.

Despite promising a statement on the planning decision, the Wellcome Trust is refusing to comment until its governors meet on 8 September. But the news will come as a profound disappointment to the trust, which has repeatedly affirmed its belief in the proposal. In April, Mike Dexter, its director, complained about the length of time they had been kept waiting and said the government could aid biomedical research by ensuring that planning decisions were “taken in the national interest”.

The trust must now consider whether to apply for a smaller extension, of just over half the 40,000 square metres originally requested, which would be likely to win planning permission but would not provide enough space for the expansion of biotechnology companies already on the site.

David Hussell, planning director of the local South Cambridgeshire District Council, said of the decision: “This is good news for the planning system, which must strike the right balance between prosperity and environmental concerns.”

The government also approved two smaller biotech developments in the Cambridge area, including an expansion of the Babraham Institute. Hussell contrasted the institute's approach with that of the trust as being “flexible” and hoped that the trust would “adopt a similar approach” in future negotiations.

The DTI rather optimistically described the planning decisions, which were taken by the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, as a “positive boost to the Cambridge biotechnology cluster”. The rejection of the Hinxton Hall proposal, albeit with the option for a smaller site, is seen as a snub for the DTI, whose science minister only this month published a report on promoting biotechnology clusters as part of a long-term strategy to promote their growth.

Successful clusters, said the report, “require concerted action across a range of policy areas, from supporting the science base to encouraging the flow of venture capital into companies and having urban planning policies that allow clusters to grow”. The report notes that planning restrictions are a significant barrier to the growth of UK biotechnology and recommends that special planning zones be set up where clusters may develop.