The 63-acre project is being promoted by Laing Property, London and Metropolitan and Bristol-based Sydney Freed with backing from ESN, the electricity industry pension fund. ESN pioneered the Bristol business park market in the 1980s with its Aztec West project, where mobile telecoms group Orange has become a major occupier.

To kickstart the QWest project, Bristol and Bath universities are to take 15,000 sf for an Academic Innovation Centre to house business spin-offs from the universities' research work. South Gloucestershire council has already granted outline planning consent for the project, and detailed consent for its innovation centre is expected in June.

Laing Property director Chris Bond said: 'It is hugely exciting to be involved in a major M4 project that brings together the best of academic thought and output with commercial enterprise and opportunity. Moreover we expect QWest to create upwards of 5,000 jobs and be a major boost to the economy.'