Promise… with 120 jobs at former Goodyear Head Office

St Modwen Properties PLC and Goodyear announce that Goodyear’s former UK head office in Wolverhampton has been let to financial services business Promise Solutions in a move that is likely to attract around 120 new jobs to the famous Stafford Road site.

Promise are setting up a new, wholly independent brokerage business called Promise Finance in the 2,787 sq m (30,000 sq ft) building.

Last September, Goodyear moved its UK headquarters to TyreFort in Birmingham, a centralised office and national distribution centre shared with Dunlop, their joint venture partner. The move was a key part of Goodyear Dunlop’s restructuring programme to become a more market driven organisation.

Since this move, the imposing Wolverhampton office building has been surplus to Goodyear Dunlop’s requirements, although tyre manufacturing on this site continues.

A company spokesman, explaining the rationale behind the decision to let the building, said: “Last year we announced a partnership with St Modwen where

they took over ownership of our site. We entered into this partnership to optimise the value of our land and at the same time allow under-utilised areas of our site to be redeveloped for new uses with the aim of attracting more jobs into the area.”

Mike Murray of St Modwen Properties, added: “The announcement by Promise is very good news, a great boost to the area and supports the partnership’s plans for the overall regeneration of the unused parts of the site.”

Bulleys of Wolverhampton, acted on behalf of St Modwen and Goodyear in negotiating the letting to Promise.

Earlier this year, Goodyear announced that they were to continue with manufacturing activity at Stafford Road, particularly in the specialised areas of tyre production such as mixing, calendering and retreading. At the same time, Goodyear confirmed that the areas of passenger tyre, farm tyre and light truck tyre production remained under review, as cost competitiveness remained a major challenge for the Wolverhampton plant.

For further information contact: St Modwen Properties PLC Mike Murray on 0121-456-2800

Goodyear Dunlop Tyres UK Ltd James Bailey, Manager, Corporate Communications on 0121-306-6328

Issued by Paul Raymer of Howle Chapman Raymer (0121-236-7771)