A TOOLKIT to help businesses move to Bicester is being developed in a bid to keep jobs in the town.

Business support organisation Bicester Vision is “refocusing” after appointing a new manager.

Placi O’Neill-Espejo is now in place and on the top of her agenda is building a database of all available industrial and office space in the town and surrounding area.

Last year car parts wholesaler First Line announced it would relocate with its 130 staff to a site just off junction 11 of the M40 near Banbury, after its search for an alternative Bicester site failed.

Its move followed hot on the heals of coal merchant AE Prentice and Burgess Reclamation, who both moved to the village of Souldern, between Bicester and Banbury, after their base in Station Approach was sold to make way for a car park extension for Bicester Village.

The firms also said they could not find a suitable site in or around Bicester.

Now in its fourth year, Bicester Vision plans to focus more on supporting the town’s 350 businesses as well as attracting new firms into the town.

A project team will create a toolkit aimed at enabling firms to easily relocate to Bicester. It will include local information such as available premises, as well as contacts for local professionals such as solicitors and estate agents, and details about potential grants, Mrs O’Neill-Espejo, 39, a former portfolio director and network manager for the Oxfordshire Innovation and Growth Team, said: “Bicester is going through a lot of change.

“We are also moving in a new direction, more towards business support and growth of the town and Vision’s focus will be to help existing businesses and shout a lot about what we do in Bicester and attract inward investment.”

According to a review carried out by Bicester Vision there is 400,000 sq ft of available industrial space and 40,000 sq ft of vacant office space in and around the town.

Bicester is set to have a £ 70m town centre redevelopment, with work due to start at the beginning of 2012.

Chairman Bob Langton said: “The big change of Bicester Vision is going to be a business and economic focus rather than community focus. We want to make sure businesses are able to expand in the own.

“We don’t want Bicester to become a big commuter town.

“If we create more jobs, a span of different jobs, more people will live and work in the town. We want to see as many jobs created as houses are built.

“Only two in five people shop in Bicester and we will do our best to get that to four in five.”