A developer will go to battle at a public inquiry next week in a bid to win the right to build a £100 million business park at West Bowling Golf Club.

Landmark Development Project will tell a Government inspector at the inquiry in City Hall on Tuesday the scheme will be a catalyst for the regeneration of the city and create an estimated 4,000 jobs.

A planning application to develop the golf club fields off Rooley Lane has hit delays since Bradford Council's regulatory and appeals committee decided earlier this year that it wanted the scheme to go ahead.

The scale of the development meant it had to be referred to the office of the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott for a final decision and he called it in for a public inquiry.

In the meantime an inspector reporting his findings on a separate public inquiry into the district's Unitary Development Plan - a blueprint governing land use for the next 15 years - has said he wants the site for industry with no retail.

But Landmark's scheme includes a B&Q warehouse which it says is crucial for the funding of the long-term development on the site.

If the park gets the go-ahead Landmark wants to deliver one million square feet of prime office and industrial accommodation on the site next to the national motorway network.

The company - which has already developed multi-million pound apartment and office schemes in Bradford - says the West Bowling scheme would attract national and international occupants.

Landmark director Richard Morton said: "Broadly, Government policy is against out-of-town retail as it seeks to protect town centres and generally I agree with this approach.

"However, the policy is designed to be flexible and we have proved that in this instance not only will a DIY store be no threat to the city centre, but it will actually benefit the local area as people now travel to other cities for their home improvement needs."

Bradford Council's executive member for the economy Councillor Simon Cooke said: "We think it is a critical development for the economic growth of the city."

Jeff Frankel, chairman of Bradford Retail Action Group, said: "We won't be objecting at the inquiry. We don't think a large out-of-town DIY store would affect the city centre."

Stephen Nicol, managing director of specialist economic and regeneration consultancy Regeneris who has done an independent report on this scheme, said there were no alternative sites in Bradford on the same scale as West Bowling and he estimated 4,000 jobs would be created over five to ten years.