A property company is investing more than £30m in a new 'bioscience campus' at Milton Park, near Abingdon.

MEPC, which owns the business park, is poised to start work on the site at the entrance to the park after winning planning permission from the Vale of White Horse District Council.

Philip Campbell, asset manager of MEPC Milton Park, said work was due to finish in late 2008. "We have 12 companies lined up to move in from elsewhere on the park, and another half dozen will come from outside."

The three buildings, totalling 80,000 sq ft, are intended to replace small pre-war buildings put up by when Milton Park was a military depot. These buildings will be demolished and rebuilt.

MEPC is also demolishing buildings formerly used by Bookham Technology to build an innovation centre providing units of 150 sq ft upwards, for up to 100 start-up companies.

Mr Campbell said: "We are also putting up a graduation building, so that small companies will be able to grow and move to new accommodation on the park."

Oil company ExxonMobil has won planning permission to demolish and redevelop half of its former research buildings at Milton Hill into a business park totalling 280,000 sq ft. The other half of the site is used by Infineum, a joint research venture between ExxonMobil and Shell.