Padel plan for Wolverhampton print works
The abandoned former print presses at one of the country’s largest regional newspaper titles could become home to a sports and leisure facility under plans lodged with the city council this week.
The Express & Star’s Tower Street printworks produced more than 200,000 copies per day during the heyday of print media in the early 2000s, but has sat vacant since the paper quit the building for smaller offices in 2023.
Now, fresh plans for the site put forward by Cheshire-based applicant Ian Malyan could see it converted into a padel facility with changing facilities and seven courts for players.
If approved by City of Wolverhampton Council, the new facility would be known as “Wolves Padel Centre”, with plans to replace the prominent Express & Star signage included in the application.
“The proposal would return a large redundant building to active economic use and create new employment,” said a planning statement submitted with the proposals.
“The building is a highly specialised, purpose-built newspaper press hall whose configuration is poorly suited to modern general industrial or storage occupiers, is not located within a designated employment area, and lies within the city centre where a wider mix of commercial, leisure and cultural uses is expressly encouraged.”
The development is described as “minimum intervention”, with no demolition, extension, or alteration to the exterior proposed due to the building’s large halls, which the applicant says are well suited to padel courts in its existing form.
The historic newspaper site was home to the Express & Star, one of the country’s largest daily regional newspapers, for 140 years before news operations shifted across the city to Mander House.
A plan to convert the paper’s former news offices and public reception on Queen Street into 38 residential apartments was approved by the local authority in 2025.
Plans and documents relating to the application can be found on Wolverhampton’s planning portal, using reference: 26/00963/FUL
