A large business park which straddles the M8 motorway to the north of Livingston, Deans Industrial Estate forms an arc around the north and west of the Deans neighbourhood, 2½ miles (4 km) northwest of the town centre. Development began in the north in 1969, with early occupants including the Scottish Gas Board and the Road Transport Industry Training Board's MOTEC training centre. The western section was build on the site of the Deans Oil Works, seven associated oil-shale mines and a bing, which was once the most extensive in West Lothian covering 74 ha (183 acres). The oil works closed in 1946, while the bing was reduced in height in the late 1970s and is now not particularly prominent between the industrial units. Amongst other businesses located here are sizeable distribution centres for Tesco supermarkets, the Nisa group of independently-owned local stores and Fyffes bananas. Between 1996 and 2019, the German budget supermarket Lidl operated a distribution and call centre on the site of the former Tail End Farm, immediately to the south. The streets or 'Squares' are named after Scottish engineers or inventors; namely Arrol Square, Cullen Square, Dewar Square, Dunlop Square, Elphinstone Square, Lindsay Square, Neilson Square and Rankine Square.
