Just weeks after setting up in County Durham, the North-East Mobility Warehouse has quadrupled the size of its premises from 800 to 3,200 sqft.

More importantly, for potential customers there is now the opportunity of test driving the electric wheelchairs and scooters, on the company's brand new all-weather indoor test-track.

Established at the beginning of last month, by Carl Everitt and Ian Morrell, it soon became apparent that the Mobility Warehouse's original unit on South Hetton Industrial Estate was just not going to be big enough to meet customer demand.

In order to accommodate their extensive stock of electrical scooters and wheelchairs they decided to take a larger unit on the same industrial estate almost immediately.

Mr Morrell said: "We wanted to stay on the same industrial estate but there wasn't a unit that was quite the right size - they were all either too large or too small.

"Then we had the idea of taking one of the larger units and using the spare space to set up a test track."

"When you are spending anything up to £4,000 on a mobility aid, you need to make sure that it's comfortable and suited to your needs.

"Come rain or shine, customers can come to us and have a drive before they buy. We have set it up like an indoor racetrack, just for a bit of fun and the customers seem to like it."

Both men left their jobs with video-games firm Sega to set up the company and, while it is a return to the North-East for Mr Morrell, Mr Everitt is originally from March in Cambridgeshire.

"Ian and I both worked in the South, but we occasionally visited his home in County Durham, where I immediately fell in love with the North- East.

"When we were talking about setting up in business, it soon became obvious where we both wanted to go."