Chancellor George Osborne

Sandwich’s Discovery Park - the Pfizer site - has been chosen as one of 11 new locations for Government’s Enterprise Zones

Chancellor George Osborne has visited Kent to unveil the new Discovery Park in Sandwich as one of Government’s new Enterprise Zones.

The Pfizer site is one of 11 across the country that will benefit from tax breaks, lenient planning laws and superfast broadband in a bid to attract businesses to the area.

It follows the shock announcement from drugs giant Pfizer that it would be leaving the area in 2012, with a subsequent 2,500 job losses.

Mr Osborne said: “This is a unique Enterprise Zone because unlike the others it already has state-of-the-art facilities.

“Job creation isn’t going to happen overnight – we’ll start with hundreds of jobs and build up to that 2,000 plus figure.

“There are a lot of workers at Pfizer who are already looking at starting up businesses and we hope to attract others from across the country.

“We believe this site will become world-class.”