Carlisle faces stiff competition to land a £200 million investment in a new tyre factory, which could bring 500 jobs to the city.

The Cumberland News revealed in February that entrepreneur Dick Cormack, who owns the tyre brand DMACK, was working on plans to transfer manufacturing from China to the UK.

DMACK is based in Carlisle – it recently moved from Kingstown to Carlisle Airport Business Park – and its preferred site for the factory is Kingmoor Park, which has just been awarded Enterprise Zone status.

Mr Cormack was in Carlisle last week for talks with Kingmoor Park Properties, MP John Stevenson and local authorities.

He told The Cumberland News that, while Kingmoor Park remains the preferred option, an alternative location in southern England is under serious consideration. He cannot name the rival location for contractual reasons.

He said: “The financial package is in place. It’s down to how we structure the deal and make a decision as to where we bring the project, Carlisle or elsewhere.

“By the end of May we will have a decision on where we will site it.

“Carlisle is option one. There is more risk involved in bringing it here but being a Cumbrian I’d like to see it happen.

“At the end of the day all the numbers have to add up. We have to minimise the risk.”

Mr Cormack says the award of Enterprise Zone status for Kingmoor Park has helped.

Enterprise Zones enjoy simplified planning rules and a business rate discount worth up to £275,000 for each company over five years.

He added: “There are benefits from a planning point of view and we are looking to see what other benefits we can get from the Enterprise Zone.

“From the conversations we’ve had, John Stevenson has been very, very supportive. We have yet to see what the council can do.”

John Nixon, a former industrial director at Pirelli who has latterly been involved with Carlisle United, is acting as a consultant on the project.

Specialists from the Finnish consultancy Black Donuts, which advises on the design, construction, fit-out and efficient operation of tyre manufacturing plants, were on site at Kingmoor Park last week carrying out evaluation work.

Mr Cormack hopes that the factory could be operational by 2019, initially with a workforce of between 70 and 100 people.

But with a capacity to turn out 2m tyres a year, the numbers employed could rise to 500 as production increases. It is anticipated that another 150 jobs would be created during construction and across the local supply chain.

Mr Cormack is a former motorsport product development manager at Pirelli who founded DMACK in 2006.

Its tyres are designed in Carlisle but manufactured by the Shandong Yongtai Chemical Group in China.

The brand made its name in motorsport tyres and Mr Cormack says the Carlisle factory would produce these, alongside tyres for ultra-high-performance cars. The former would be exported all over the world, while the performance car tyres would would be primarily for the UK and European markets.

The site would also include a research and development facility, designing motorsport and fuel-efficient tyres for sustainable and hybrid motoring.

This research centre could link with M-Sport’s evaluation centre at Dovenby, near Cockermouth, making Cumbria a hub for world-class automotive engineering and technology.

Long term, the plan is for Black Donuts to build six tyre factories – after Carlisle the next three would be in Iran, Mexico and Algeria – owned by investors but manufacturing DMACK tyres under a licensing agreement.