Consultation launched on new Edinburgh neighbourhood for 20,000 people | Tesco leaves Poland | Insurance giant Lloyds and Greene King in slavery apology

BioQuarter, which sits to the south east of the city, is already home to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, the University of Edinburgh Medical School and Centre for Regenerative Medicine, alongside a number of medical research institutes and life sciences businesses.

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The ambition is that BioQuarter will grow to a community of more than 20,000 people who will live, work or study at the 167-acre site. The expansion will support an estimated 9,000 longer term new jobs, plus additional construction jobs, while greatly expanding the numbers of spin out and start-up companies.

BioQuarter’s Partners –the City of Edinburgh Council, NHS Lothian, Scottish Enterprise, and the University of Edinburgh – are updating their existing masterplan to include a wider mix of uses including an increase in residential and commercial properties planned at the site. The consultation on the plan will run online – due to current restrictions caused by Covid-19 – between 18 June and 6 July 2020.

Proposals featured as part of the online consultation include the construction of shops, cafés, a gym, hotel, nursery and residential homes set alongside state-of-the-art innovation, teaching and healthcare facilities.

With the commitment of its partners, BioQuarter has already benefitted from over £500million of public capital investment and has a further £300million of investment planned over the next five years. The site is also home to innovative research including STOPCOVID, a project aiming to test existing and experimental drugs as treatments for Covid-19, spearheaded by the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Inflammation Research.

Anna Stamp, Edinburgh BioQuarter, Interim Programme Director, said: “Over the past two decades BioQuarter has grown as a place for health innovation with some of the country’s top medical research and life sciences businesses working together across the site.

“We want your views to help shape BioQuarter’s development. This is an exciting time as we look to create a new community in the city; a vibrant neighbourhood that promotes health and wellbeing and compliments its surrounding areas.

"We have a unique opportunity here, which, if developed in the right way, can deliver huge benefits to the City, including economic growth, jobs skills and education. As part of the development of our Health Innovation District, we want to make sure it includes the right mix of amenities that will ensure it becomes a great new place to live, work and discover.”

Council Leader Adam McVey said: “I’m delighted to see plans progressing for this hugely exciting project for Edinburgh. I’d encourage everyone to feed into the consultation for this cutting-edge development. Life sciences have long been extremely valuable as a sector here in Edinburgh, and the BioQuarter will play a crucial role in its ongoing success. This can make a massive contribution to the ongoing regeneration of the south east of the city.

“This scheme will create a whole new community of people, with access to a vibrant new public square. In addition to this, it's estimated the development will create around 9,000 new local jobs, with many more construction roles being created while it is being built.”

Tesco has sold its entire Polish supermarket division for £181 million in the latest series of retreats from international operations by chief executive Dave Lewis.

The outgoing boss, who leaves later this year, said the decision to leave the country after 25 years was to allow Tesco to focus attentions on businesses in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

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The new owners, Salling Group, will now control 301 stores in the country, adding to the Danish retailer's portfolio in Germany, Denmark and Poland. Under Tesco's control, those sites generated sales of £947 million last year, with a loss before tax of £107 million.

Mr Lewis said: "We have seen significant progress in our business in Central Europe but continue to see market challenges in Poland.

"Today's announcement allows us to focus in the region on our business in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, where we have stronger market positions with good growth prospects and achieve margins, cashflows and returns which are accretive to the Group."

Sales in the past financial year at the Tesco Polska division were £1.37 billion, although it made an operating loss of £24 million, as the grocer spent much of the past year selling its Polish property portfolio.

It also announced 19 stores in the country not covered by the transaction will be sold, following 22 site sales over the past 18 months netting proceeds of £200 million, the supermarket said.

Last year Tesco said it sold 2.1 million square feet of space in Poland, with particular focus on selling larger hypermarkets and focusing on smaller sites instead.

Mr Lewis has undergone major cost-cutting measures under his tenure, including selling Tesco's South Korea and Turkey businesses.

Most recently, he sold the grocer's Thai and Malaysia businesses for £8.2 billion and decided to hand the cash to shareholders in dividends in the spring.

However, he faced criticism for not delaying the payout by a year due to the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus crisis.

Some were critical of the optics of giving out huge sums of cash at the same time it also benefited from the Government's 100% business rates holiday in England.

But, with Mr Lewis leaving, the handout would have been made by his successor Ken Murphy, who starts in the top job in October, if it had been delayed by a year.

Two of Britain's largest companies have vowed to pay money benefiting black and ethnic minorities after their roles in the slave trade were revealed.

Insurance giant Lloyd's of London and pub chain Greene King said they will devote large sums to projects assisting minorities, after they were named in a database of companies connected to slavery compiled by University College London.

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The list is a sign of how Britain's past involvement with the slave trade - which has led to the tearing down of statues - has begun to impact on the corporate sector.

Greene King was founded in 1799 by Benjamin Greene, who became one of 47,000 people who benefited from compensation paid to slave owners when slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833.

Greene surrendered rights to three plantations in the West Indies in return for what amounts to £500,000 in today's money.

While Greene King's past connections to slavery are not mentioned on the company's website, chief executive Nick Mackenzie told the Daily Telegraph the company would update its site on Thursday, while he also offered an apology for that chapter of the pub chain's history.

"It is inexcusable that one of our founders profited from slavery and argued against its abolition in the 1800s," he said.

"We don't have all the answers, so that is why we are taking time to listen and learn from all the voices, including our team members and charity partners, as we strengthen our diversity and inclusion work."

Mr Mackenzie said Greene King would make a "substantial investment" to benefit the black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) community and work to support its own race diversity.

With regard to Lloyd's, the database shows that Simon Fraser, a founder subscriber member, was given £400,000 in today's money to give up an estate in Dominica.

A Lloyd's spokesman said: "We are sorry for the role played by the Lloyd's market in the 18th and 19th century slave trade.

"We will provide financial support to charities and organisations promoting opportunity and inclusion for black and minority ethnic groups."