THE former Coty's building on the Great West Road is set to become a private health clinic with specialist treatment, if plans are given the go-ahead by the council next Thursday (15).

The company King Sturge' have been marketing the site for a number of years, blaming the wait on a general decline in demand for buildings designated for office use along the Great West Road, but announced this week that they have found a client willing to move into the listed building.

The plans are for a medical centre that would include scanning facilities, dentists and GPs, with around 25 people employed at the site.

Adam Gostling, of King Sturge, told the Times that there was no question however, of a threat to the listed building: "The building itself is quite a nice looking Art Deco building, and our clients would not wish to change it. This is a very positive way of regenerating the Great West Road, which in general has quite a high vacancy rate, especially for buildings designated for commercial use. This will bring a historic building back into use without threatening its history."

Coty's exquisite perfumes and cosmetics were well known in England before they were manufactured in Brentford, according to James Marshall, in his widely respected book The History of the Great West Road'.

The company was founded by a Corsican chemist, Francois Spoturno, in 1904, who later changed his name to Coty.

By the end of the First World War his business dealings made him the millionaire proprietor of the famous Figaro newspaper, although his fortunes had declined considerably by the time of his death in 1934.

Coty (England) Ltd., originally imported the French made scents and soaps through their aristocratic London offices in Stratford Place, off Oxford Street, in an eighteenth century house built by Addam for the Earl of Mayo.

However, in August 1932 the company started manufacturing in a new, purpose built, factory on the Great West Road. By the mid 1950s Coty employed over 400 local people in the production of soaps, lipsticks, scents and creams.

Mr Woolmer, who worked for Coty's for 44 years as a joiner and assisted in the company's move to Brentford in 1932, remembers Queen Mary visiting the factory.

He also recalls the great secrecy which shrouded the regular visits to the works by the senior chemists and parfumeurs of the French parent company.

His colleague, a joiner who also acted as a chauffeur, would meet them at the railway station in London and bring them to Brentford. Here they took over the company's laboratories to make up perfume essences from secret recipes.

Even Brentford's senior chemist remained on the outside of the laboratory door!

The History of the Great West Road' is published by Heritage Publications, at the London Borough of Hounslow, Hounslow Library, 24 Treaty Centre, High Street, Hounslow TW3 1ES.