The new Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer will be priced from £16,575 when it launches here later this year.

That puts the load-lugging derivative at a starting price that is £500 lower than the current entry-level Astra estate.

Built in Britain at Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant, the Astra Sports Tourer range starts with the 1.4-litre 98bhp ES model.

That model has 10bhp more power than the equivalent 1.4 Astra estate, and also gets air-con, curtain airbags, ESP, electronic parking brake, an aux-in socket and active safety front head restraints as standard.

The Sports Tourer’s premium over the 5-door hatch model starts from just £995, for which customers benefit from a larger cargo area (500* versus 470 litres, with rear seats up), despite retaining the same wheelbase as the new hatch.

The Sports Tourer range comprises four trim levels: ES, Exclusiv, SE and SRi, but adds a variety of standard and optional equipment, including FlexFold, which allows each section of the 60:40 split-fold rear seatbacks to be lowered at the press of a button housed in the walls of the cargo compartment.

Joining the new Astra range, which has now sold over 30,000 units in the UK since it was launched at the end of last year, the Sports Tourer is likely to account for around 10% of all sales.