A FINANCIAL planner has announced plans to create more than 100 jobs by April next year and more than double its workforce by the end of 2016.

Choice Future Planning, which provides financial products for the over 50s, relocated from Shildon in County Durham to West Quay Business Village in Sunderland as part of its expansion.

It received support and advice from Sunderland City Council to find its new head office and successfully applied for a £400,000 grant from the Let’s Grow Regional Growth Fund to support the creation of 104 new jobs.

The firm added 20 new staff in January, bringing its workforce to 53, and it aims to take on a further 20 people in April and 20 in September. Between January and April next year, it plans to create 40 more jobs.

Choice Future Planning was established in 2014 as spin-off from Adrian Holland’s financial services business Kudos Wealth Management, which has been operating in pensions and mortgages since 1992. The firm started in offices in Shildon but moved its headquarters to Sunderland in January last year.

Director Adrian Holland said: “We really needed somewhere larger and more central. Sunderland has a great workforce and a good transport infrastructure."