AS Card Protection Plan's brand new £10 million purpose built customer contact centre in York opens officially for business tonight a second new multi-million pound building in the city is now planned by the company.

A spokesperson for the massively-growing CPP confirmed exclusively for Business Press: "We are looking to build another and will make an announcement soon."

But he added it was too early to say whether the site would be in the vicinity of the existing gleaming new building in Holgate Road.

But clearly the credit and debit card insurer needs to act quickly in order to have the second new building ready by next spring. It is less than 18 months since it decided to have its second UK operation in York - temporarily based in the Adtranz building on Holgate Road until the new contact centre was completed. The Adtranz lease, however, expires in April.

Tonight the first 150 of 800 customer contact agents will have moved into the new premises, and the balance will be phased in over the next four weeks. Their first outbound calls will be made from there this evening.

The 60,000 square foot three-storey building built by Malton construction firm Harrisons is kitted out with state of the art technology and infrastructure to support the 1,000 customer contact agents it has been designed to house.

Great attention has been paid to the agents' working environment with huge investment in air conditioning, a fully equipped gym as well as a restaurant with satellite TV and connections to the Internet..

Whatever new building is erected by next April is likely to accommodate about 200 support staff for administration and research and development, including marketing, human resources, finance and software development.

CPP has completely surpassed its initial plans for employment within York, and the high recruitment rate is likely to continue as new products unfold such as its launch of e-shopsafe, Britain's first comprehensive insurance policy against on-line fraud and an assurance scheme to replace lost mobile phones within 24 hours.

Original estimates were that CPP would employ 750 people over five years but, with more than 800 staff ready to move in to the new building, the plans are now to increase staffing levels to more 1,200 by summer 2001

Stephen West, CPP's consumer relations director, said: "We are delighted that all elements of this project have come together so

successfully to ensure that we open this building complete and bang on schedule.

"We continue to get massive support from the York community which has allowed us to exceed our employment targets so quickly. The new customer contact centre allows us to invite more people to join the York team, taking advantage of a great working environment".

Those interested in job opportunities at CPP should call (freephone) 0808 1002509 - a line open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.