VAN hire firm Northgate wants the whole of the UK to mirror its presence in the North-East, where it has branches serving most major towns.

The Darlington firm yesterday confirmed further expansion plans to help drive forward its recent growth spurt. Over the next two to three years it will open 14 more service centres across the UK - taking its total number of outlets to 90 - which bosses expect will create more jobs in Darlington, where it employs about 400 people across two offices.

Northgate's vehicles are used by tradesmen across the UK and Ireland, and in Spain where it is the market leader. The upturn in the UK and Spanish economies, and Northgate's steadily expanding network, helped the company to report revenue growth of £614m compared to £572m for the year before.

In yesterday's preliminary annual results bosses hailed "another year of progress" as underlying pre-tax profit increased from £60.3m to £84.9m, and shareholders were cheered by a 45 per cent increase in dividend per share to 14.5p, from 10.0p last year.

"We already have a strong concentration of centres in the North-East," Chris Muir, Northgate group finance director told The Northern Echo. "We'd like the rest of the UK to be the same."

Mr Muir said the business was "keeping a close eye" on events in the Eurozone but admitted it was hard to predict the potential impact of Grexit.

"We are in a much stronger position than we were three or four years ago and are therefore in a better position to weather whatever potential fallout comes from Greece," added Mr Muir.

Northgate started life as Noble Self Drive in 1981, when Alan Noble set up business from his Darlington home. It now has North-East depots across Tees Valley and Tyneside.

Bob Contreras, chief executive of Northgate, said: “It’s been another year of progress across the group and it’s pleasing to see this translate into a strong set of results. We remain particularly focused on targeting growth with small and medium sized customers across the UK and Spain and there have been encouraging increases in the number of vehicles on hire in both countries.

"In the UK we have opened a further eight new sites which are trading in line with initial plans and we have also continued to develop and improve our vehicle sales channels, including Van Monster, which has helped to improve returns.

"Finally I would like to thank Bob Mackenzie as he retires from the chairman role. Under his leadership since 2010 the group has more than doubled profits, greatly reduced debt and reintroduced a dividend. His guidance will be missed, but we are fortunate to be having someone of Andrew Page’s calibre stepping into the role and we look forward to delivering further returns to shareholders as we move into the next chapter for the group.”