German agricultural machinery maker Claas, which has its UK headquarters at Saxham, Bury St Edmunds, is set to invest 15m euros in a new 8,000m sq test centre at its global HQ at Harsewinkel.

The centre, expected to be finished by the autumn of next year, will merge the site’s test laboratories and significantly increase its testing capacity for developing new machines.

“The test centre will be able to simulate a broad variety of climactic conditions encountered during harvests around the world,” said head of validation Oliver Westphal. “These simulations help the engineers to assess the performance capabilities and reliability of the machinery at an early stage of its development.”

The energy efficient centre, which will use electric drive units instead of diesel engines to test components, will be able to test components for combine harvesters, forage harvesters and tractors.