More than £7 million — including £50,000 on marketing — has been spent on developing a Belfast business park that has yet to secure any tenants, two years after it was first unveiled.

Giant’s Park is an ambitious project to turn 340 acres of wasteland in north Belfast into a technology hub that — it was hoped — would create up to 400 jobs.

Belfast City Council said it has received 44 expressions of interest, but nobody has signed up. Giant’s Park — a part-Government funded scheme that has received £3.6 million from Belfast City Council, £1.6 million from Invest NI and £2.2 million from the EU — is pitching at those working in the renewables, recycling and other so-called ‘clean-tech’ sectors.

Esmond Birnie, an economist with Ulster University, said: “There is probably a case here of ‘build it and they may take a while to come’. Being ready for unpredictable inward investment may require always holding a buffer of empty land.

“To put Giant’s Park into context, the other councils, the enterprise agencies, Catalyst Inc and Invest NI all have vacant land holdings in terms of industrial estates, science parks and incubator units.”