BMW's new Hams Hall engine plant will be starting production as planned in January, three years after construction started.

The £400 million project will create 1,500 jobs when production at the plant near Birmingham of a new generation of BMW four-cylinder petrol engines reaches full volume.

Engines from Hams Hall will go to BMW's car production plants in Germany, USA and South Africa.

In the first year of production the new plant will produce 60,000 engines and then build up over subsequent years to a capacity of 400,000.