THE former Karro Foods site on Sandys Moor will be the site for a new Wiveliscombe Enterprise Centre.

Work will begin this summer and be completed by the end of the year, although it will not be ready for occupation until early 2019. The facility will provide ten offices, meeting rooms and seven industrial units.

The Wiveliscombe Enterprise Centre is one of three that will be opened in Somerset under the county council’s new business plan.

The council already supports five centres across the county, supporting more than 50 businesses with affordable and flexible premises.

With each of these five premises now reaching their capacity, the council has been on the hunt for new sites in rural areas.

The new centres have been built into the council’s business plan, which came before the policies and place scrutiny committee in Taunton recently.

The planned centres come under the council’s wider aim to ‘create the climate for enterprise and innovation that businesses need to grow and collaborate’.

The five existing centres provide a total of 52,000 sq ft of business space, and are currently operating at 93 per cent capacity.

The council said that it was difficult to estimate how many businesses the new centres would be able to accommodate, since it would depend on the demands of the individual users.

A spokesman said: “These centres are there to provide suitable, affordable and flexible space, particularly in rural areas, because this has been found to be a key barrier to small businesses setting up or expanding.”

The council’s business plan – including the new enterprise centres – will be signed off by the cabinet on June 11.