The cult 1960s tv show The Clangers is returning to the small screen, as a result of new tax breaks for animation and high end television productions which came into force in April this year.

A run of 52 new episodes is being co-produced by the BBC and Sprout, a US pre-school television company, together with the UK family entertainment companies Coolabi and Smallfilms.

The shows, which will air in 2015, will cost £5m to make and are to be financed via funding by Edge Investments, a venture capital firm which specialises in backing creative industry ventures, and the Animation Tax Relief (ATR) the production companies can claim because the series passes the necessary cultural test.

ATR is available for programmes which are British in nature, spend a minimum 51% of total expenditure on animation and at least 25% of the total production costs relate to activities in the UK.

As a result, the makers of The Clangers will be able to claim an additional tax deduction of 100% of enhanceable expenditure (the lesser of UK qualifying expenditure or 80% of total qualifying expenditure). Were the companies to make a loss, they would have the option of surrendering that lost and converting some or all of it into a payable tax credit.

The Clangers are pink, mouse-shaped creatures that communicate with distinctive whistle sounds and live on a small blue planet in holes topped with dustbin lids which open with a 'clang'. The new series will be have Peter Firmin, its original creator, as an executive producer and will be made using the same stop-motion animation techniques as before.