A Danish wind turbine company is to create 100 jobs on the Kintyre peninsula.

Vestas Wind Systems is to open a manufacturing plant at Machrihanish, near Campbeltown.

The plant, which is being hailed as the biggest-ever inward investment project in the area, is a boost for the local economy.

It comes only weeks after the loss of 160 jobs at the Jaeger clothing factory in Campbeltown.

Vestas Wind Systems is looking to establish a manufacturing centre at the former Royal Air Force base at Machrihanish.

Series of closures

The announcement has been hailed as a significant inward investment project for the Highlands and Islands.

The company is understood to have been attracted by the prospect of �9m in public money.

The plant will be the company's first factory in Europe outside Denmark and will use many of the skills employed in Campbeltown's former shipyard, which closed in 1997.

The Jaeger closure was the latest in a series of jobs blows for an area where the unemployment rate has been well above the national average.

The area suffered when the RAF said it was withdrawing from Machrihanish and the Campbeltown shipyard was closed.