PLANS for a world famous Huddersfield engineering firm to open a new site in Mirfield have passed the first hurdle.

David Brown Gears had asked Kirklees Council for permission to set up a global centre of excellence for gear manufacture and a wind innovation centre.

Councillors today voted 9-4 in favour of the development planned between Leeds Road and Slipper Lane in Mirfield.

The building would take place on one-third of the seven-hectare site known as Mirfield 25.

A new junction off Leeds Road would be established, along with 297 parking spaces.

The council’s Heavy Woollen Planning Sub-committee backed the plans and the major project will now go before Kirklees Council's Planning and Highways Committee on January 12.

If the move goes ahead more than 270 of the firm’s 450 staff will relocate to Mirfield with the rest remaining at the company’s headquarters in Lockwood.