Principal business parks are:

• Marsh Barton Industrial Estate – mainly automotive

• Sowton Industrial Estate – includes Royal Mail, B&Q, Homebase

• Pynes Hill between city centre and M5 jct 30 – includes Norwich Union, Prince's Trust

• Exeter Business Park between city centre and M5 jct 29 – includes, as well as the Met Office, BT, Bass, Vodafone

• there’s also Matford, Park Five, Pinhoe, Skypark and the University’s Innovation Centre.

For more information go to www.Exeter.gov.UK and click on Business.

UNIVERSITY

Exeter University started life back in the 1860s, as an offshoot of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. It occupied comparatively small city-centre premises until the move to its purpose-built campus in 1955, its old premises now being occupied by the Phoenix Arts Centre. The new campus still being near the centre of Exeter, students continue to make their presence felt there, making it vibrant and energetic.

Since the year 2000, the pace of development at Exeter University has accelerated by leaps and bounds. An Innovation Centre with workshop units for high-tech businesses opened that year, and the building of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies was enabled by a donation from the Sheikh of Sharjah.

In 2001 a multi-million pound donation resulted in the creation of the Xfi Centre for Finance and Investment, and a successful bid for research funding led to four state-of-the-art scientific research centres being built. 2002 saw the opening of the Peninsula Medical School, a highly successful joint project with Plymouth University.

In 2004, new student accommodation was built, together with leisure facilities, and in that year Exeter also became involved in the development of CUC, the Combined Universities in Cornwall, by relocating some of its teaching and research facilities to a new campus at Penryn.

The university attracts students who appreciate its virtues – a beautiful campus in the centre of a small and welcoming city, close to seashore and countryside. It has traditionally been strong in the arts, and its English faculty has the reputation of being second only to Oxford.

However, the university is also forging strong links with the business community, and its School of Business and Economics has developed its own MBA and MA in Leadership Studies. One predictable outcome of this move is that the Exeter area is likely to become first choice of location for an entire new generation of business leaders, creating yet more prosperity for the area.

For more information: www.Exeter.ac.UK.