A NORTH-East company's hopes of becoming the hub of a new offshore wind industry lay in ruin last night.

Mayflower Energy, in Middlesbrough, has gone into administration following the collapse of parent company the Mayflower Corporation.

Only last Tuesday, the Teesside company's £45m Mayflower Resolution - a ship designed for building offshore wind farms - docked at Teesport during its maiden voyage to the region.

With it, Mayflower Energy, which established its headquarters in the region promised to bring hundreds of jobs to Teesside.

It said that a new industry would be created in the region, as it would be at the heart of offshore wind farm technology, and would develop a centre of excellence for the emerging sector.

But the dreams of 140 jobs were shattered as Mayflower Energy called in administrators Deloitte and Touche.

It is believed that up to two-thirds of its 60-strong workforce have been made redundant.

Parent company Mayflower Corporation went into administration after discovering a £20m black hole in the group's pension fund. Its market value fell by a third.

Mayflower Energy was thought to have escaped the fall-out from the administration, but an attempt to free it from its parent group failed to materialise.

A spokesman for One NorthEast, which has given the company more than £500,000 in grant aid, said Mayflower may have to pay the money back.

Mayflower Resolution, a 130m vessel capable of building up to ten wind turbines at a time, is the company's main asset and administrators believe it may have to be sold.

The company had secured a £74m contract for installing wind farms this year, and more business was in the pipeline.

Offshore wind farms are seen as playing a major role in the future of renewable energy.

With more governments around the world signing up to the Kyoto Protocol, that demands that at least ten per cent of energy comes from renewable sources by 2010, energy created from wind farms is crucial.

* Last night, the bus-making division of Mayflower also announced almost 300 job losses across the country, in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Lancashire.