SIR James Dyson has been named as the richest person in the southwest by The 2015 Sunday Times Rich List.

The list, published on Sunday, revealed the 1,000 richest people in Britain, including the engineer and inventor whose business has its headquarters in Malmesbury.

Dyson has gone from strength to strength over the years and is now worth around £3billion.

It took Dyson 15 years to get his original bagless vacuum cleaner on the market but he has no such problems today.

His latest product, the Dyson 360 Eye robot, was recently unveiled and his engineers are working on technology that could double the life of smartphone batteries.

Keen to encourage the next generation of design engineers, Dyson, 67, is pouring money into higher education.

Last month, he gave £12million to Imperial College London to fund the Dyson School of Design Engineering, while last year he gave £8million to the University of Cambridge.

In addition to his £3billion business, Dyson has land holdings amounting to 25,000 acres and an 18th-century manor house, Dodington Park, in Gloucestershire.