Goodyear Dunlop plan to secure future of UK plant

By Patrick Raleigh, ERJ On-line news editor

Birmingham, UK-Goodyear Dunlop Tyres UK Ltd has applied for planning permission to redevelop its 90-acre Stafford Road site in Wolverhampton, in the English Midlands.

Under the plan, the firm would invest in the raw material mixing, calendering and truck tyre retreading operations at the site, which currently employs around 500.

Production of agricultural tyres would, however, be phased out, with the remainder of the site to be redeveloped for residential housing, social and leisure facilities, said a 28 June company statement.

The proposal marks a possible change in fortune for the Wolverhampton operation, which just four years ago employed over 2500. The facility is now fraction of its former scale after the closure of almost all its tyre production activities.

The plan would protect many of the existing jobs on the site and also to create new job opportunities through the regeneration of the unused parts of the site, said Andrew Harper, Goodyear Dunlop's production director at Wolverhampton.

“It is still only a proposal, but the cooperation shown by our workforce and external bodies has encouraged us to examine ways in which a sustainable Goodyear Dunlop manufacturing entity can be retained on site,” commented Harper.