ENGINEERING company The Tanfield Group has revealed it could create a minimum of 1,000 jobs when it expands.

The Tyne and Wear company, which makes zero-emission vehicles, wants to invest tens of millions of pounds in a new site, to boost production capacity from the current maximum of 1,500 vehicles a year to 5,000.

The factory could be operational within the next 12 to 18 months, after being planned by the Washington group since April.

The plans come in the wake of the Alternative Investment Market-listed Tanfield revealing that pre-tax profits had trebled in the past six months to £5.4m.

However, Tanfield chairman Roy Stanley said that while the group would prefer the factory to be built in the North-East, it was also looking elsewhere.

"Given the scale of the project, we have got to look not just elsewhere in the UK, but also outside the UK," he said, adding that its current Vigo Centre headquarters and 500-strong workforce would remain unaffected by the move.

"My preference would be the North-East, and there has been such a level of goodwill over our plans that we are hopeful this could happen.

"The project will happen in the fairly short-term and, once fully operational, will create in excess of 1,000 jobs over three years. We know exactly what we want and we need to find the right location."