Engine maker Rolls-Royce is to close its Nottinghamshire engine-testing facility by the end of 2007.

The company said it had chosen a Nasa space agency site in Mississippi, US, as the preferred location for a new facility.

The decision to stop engine testing at Hucknall, near Nottingham, was taken in 2001, subject to finding a suitable alternative venue.

It was made to improve environmental conditions around the site, which is close to a housing development.

Rolls-Royce said the 30 employees involved in test activities have been offered redeployment within the company, or have accepted severance packages. Hucknall, formerly the base for the company's flight testing programmes and a specialist outdoor engine test facility since the start of the jet era, will continue as the centre of excellence for the production of combustion system components.

A new £29m manufacturing plant employing about 300 people will be fully operational by the end of this year.

Noise measurement testing of the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine for the 555-seater Airbus A380 superjumbo, followed by similar, specialist testing on the Trent 1000, being developed to power the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, is scheduled to begin at the Mississippi centre in the second half of 2007.