The Wellcome Trust's (London) mighty genomics wagon came off the rails slightly when plans for a £100 million biotechnology park in the UK were thwarted by local planning authorities. Wellcome wanted to expand its Genome Campus in Hinxton (near Cambridge) to provide facilities for firms that might commercialize the exploitation of raw data being generated at the Sanger Center for gene sequencing and processed by the European Bioinformatics Institute. The plan was expected to create 1,000 jobs and many start-up companies, but the UK secretary of state for the Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions rejected the proposal amid local concerns about the effects an expansion—about 40,000 square meters— would have on the surrounding countryside. The decision starkly contradicts sentiment at the UK Department of Trade and Industry, which recently emphasized the importance of promoting biotechnology "clusters" for development of the industry (Nat. Biotechnol. 17, 520, 1999). Rumors that the Wellcome Trust is now looking to locate abroad have not been confirmed.