Up to 116 jobs are to go at Goodyear Dunlop's UK sales centre at TyreFort, Erdington, Birmingham. Another 100 jobs are also risk at other sites in a major restructuring.

. Andreas Niegsch, general manager of sales operations, said: "We need to restructure our sales operations in order to become a more flexible, dynamic and responsive organisation in a highly competitive marketplace. Since the alliance between Goodyear and Dunlop was announced in 1999, we have undertaken significant restructuring of our UK manufacturing and logistics operations as we integrated the companies.

"Goodyear and Dunlop are two incredibly strong brands, and we are committed to investing in their future and building their market share in the UK. However, to do this we need to make it easier for our trade customers to deal with us."