NISSAN aims to take the mini-MPV scene by storm with its latest British-built Note model.

The Japanese brand is heralding greatly reduced running costs and a raft of first-in-class safety features for the newcomer.

For starters, the Note's future residual values are predicted to rise by as much as £1,125 over a typical three year 30,000 mile contract according to valuation expert CAP, which is a seven per cent uplift over the outgoing model.

Among new features on the Note are Nissan's Safety Shield technologies which provide features like Blind Spot Warning, Lane Departure Warning and Moving Object Detection plus an Around View Monitor, giving a bird's eye view when parking.

Both petrol and diesel engines will be up for grabs, the 98PS 1.2-litre DIG-S petrol and 90PS 1.5-litre dCi diesel equipped with stop start technology bringing emissions below 100g/km.

Nissan hopes to sell 20,000 new Notes in total in its first full year, 30 per cent of which will be into the fleet sector.

And the company's corporate sales chief Barry Beeston said: "Note provides a new and exciting proposition to fleets within the mainstream B-sector which is the basis for many company car choice lists.

"The used guides have reacted very positively to the car which helps drive down leasing costs making the Note competitive with mainstream rivals."