THE two creators of the Thomas the Tank Engine television series, who bought the rights to the character from the Rev W. Awdry for £50,000 sterling in 1981, are to float the company on the stock market next month for £30 million.

Ms Britt Allcroft and Mr Angus Wright, the husband and wife team who founded the Britt Allcroft group, will own a 28 per cent stake in the quoted company valued at £8.4 million.

Other significant shareholders are Ringo Starr, who narrates the programmes and holds a 5.1 per cent stake, and Lord Romsey, the nephew of Lord Mountbatten and another of the original founders, who owns a 7.5 per cent holding.

Mr Wright, deputy chairman and chief executive of Britt Allcroft, said it was unfair to compare the £50,000 they paid Mr Awdry, the creator of the Thomas books, with the money the flotation would raise.

Mr Awdry, though 86 and bed ridden, was, he said "overjoyed by the way the Thomas character and his books have been developed". Mr Awdry's publishers, William Heinemann, earn royalties of about £2.8 million a year from the use of the Thomas name on everything from home videos to mugs, birthday cakes and children's kites, and a proportion of this goes to the author. William Heinemann Books retains the right to the Thomas books.