Planning permission for the new McLaren Production Centre have already been submitted. If the application is successful, a new modern sports car plant will be built on a plot of land that sits adjacent to McLaren's existing Woking base.

The factory will have capacity to build 20 cars per day, and McLaren claims it will be the UK's most modern and efficient automotive factory.

McLaren worked closely with the local authorities when designing and building its award-winning headquarters, so there's some confidence that the new application will be successful.

Crucially, McLaren's new factory will create jobs in the area. McLaren claims it will be in a position to employ 800 skilled staff to build its new range of road cars, the first of which is due to go on sale in 2011.

"It has been a long-held dream of mine to launch a McLaren sports car company," said Ron Dennis of McLaren.

"Designing, developing and selling globally the best sports cars in the world is just half of that equation; building them to previously un-matched levels of quality, with ground-breaking technologies in a production facility in the UK is key to satisfying that dream." Reuters