2,000 jobs hope for Terry's site

Plans for the site include a hotel, leisure spa, offices and apartments

A company that wants to redevelop the former Terry's factory in York says the site could create more than 2,000 jobs.

Grantside is based on Holgate Park in the city and is the preferred bidder for the Bishopthorpe Road factory.

It is working on plans for a £140m redevelopment of the site to include a hotel, new business park and high class apartments overlooking the racecourse.

Grantside's managing director Steve Davis said he was confident the plans would create more than 2,000 new jobs.

He said that although they were still working on the details of their plans, if approved, they hoped work could begin on site in the spring of 2007.

Switch production

"I think like anybody else in York," he said. "Nobody wants to see the site shut down and doing nothing.

"I'm optimistic that we can work closely with the city council and planning authority.

"We've got a realistic scheme, the council is behind it and we can see a way forward."

Kraft Foods closed the chocolate factory in September 2005 after deciding to switch production of Terry's All Gold and Chocolate Oranges from Yorkshire to Sweden, Poland and Slovakia.

It saw an end to more than a century of chocolate making in York by Terry's, which began production in 1886 and moved to the Bishopthorpe Road site in 1926.