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Coats backs Paisley 2021 legacy

  • 09 Apr 2018

Coats, the world’s leading industrial thread manufacturer and a major player in the Americas textile crafts market, is supporting plans for Paisley to build a legacy of its UK City of Culture 2021 bid.

In 2017, Coats was one of 15 firms to financially pledge £20,000 towards the costs of its birthplace hosting the cultural title, should it have won.

Yesterday (Monday 9 April), members of the Coats Group plc Board, including Chairman, Mike Clasper CBE, and Group Chief Executive, Rajiv Sharma, visited the town and confirmed that the pledge remains in place for projects promoting Paisley's ambitious bid legacy plans.

While in Paisley, they were given a tour of Paisley Museum and Coats Observatory, both built by the Coats family, and Paisley: The Secret Collection, the UK’s first high street museum store and home to many of the items the mill owners bequeathed to the town.

Rajiv Sharma, Group Chief Executive, Coats, said: ‘Coats is extremely proud of its heritage, which is inextricably linked with Paisley. We are delighted to confirm that we remain committed to the financial pledge we made when we backed the Paisley 2021 bid last year. The tremendous energy and focus that emerged during the bid process has created a legacy which we want to support.’

Paisley is pushing ahead with ambitious plans to deliver on the vision of the 2021 bid to transform the area’s future using its internationally significant heritage and cultural assets. That includes a £100m+ investment in town centre venues and infrastructure, including a £42m project to make Paisley Museum into an international-class destination showcasing the town’s rich textile heritage and unique collections.

The Paisley 2021 legacy plan also includes ambitious plans to grow the area’s major events programme, invest in its independent cultural sector, develop as a hub of creative industry, and harness the power of culture to make people’s lives better across health and education services.

The work will be underpinned by the new destination brand paisley.is, which aims to promote Renfrewshire as a great place to live, visit and invest, and help grow the local visitor economy.

While the 19,000 employees of Coats are spread across six continents, the company retains a presence in Paisley, where its colour management technology team overseeing the dyeing of products manufactured across the globe from its base in the historic Abbey Mills complex.

Councillor Lisa-Marie Hughes, chair of Renfrewshire Leisure, which operates Paisley Museum said: ‘We are delighted to have welcomed the Coats Board to the town and thank them for their contribution towards Paisley’s ongoing transformation. While the modern Coats company is very different from the one which started life in Paisley in the 19th century, the spirit of innovation and creative industry which saw it grow to be one of the biggest companies in the world is still at the core of what it does.

‘Just as Paisley made textiles, textiles made Paisley – many of the most striking parts of Paisley’s iconic skyline grew from the generosity of the Coats family, as did the globally-significant collections in our museums.

‘With the museum set to undergo a transformation into a major visitor destination over the next few years, it was great to show the board how the shared heritage and creative spirit of Paisley and Coats will be at the heart of the town’s future.’

ENDS

To download a high resolution image go to the media library.

For more information contact:
Kristina Blissett, Head of Communications kristina.blissett@coats.com
T +44 (0)208 210 5084, M +44 (0)7714 539887

Colin Orr, Renfrewshire Council, colin.orr@renfrewshire.gov.uk
T +44 (0)141 618 7348

Notes to Editors

About Coats

Coats is the world’s leading industrial thread manufacturer and a major player in the Americas textile crafts market. At home in more than 50 countries, Coats employs 19,000 people across six continents. Revenues in 2017 were US$1.5bn.

Coats’ pioneering history and innovative culture ensure the company leads the way around the world: providing complementary and value added products and services to the apparel and footwear industries; applying innovative techniques to develop high technology Performance Materials threads and yarns in areas such as automotive, composites and fibre optics; and extending the crafts offer into new markets and online.

Headquartered in the UK, Coats is a FTSE 250 listed company on the London Stock Exchange. It is the Official Thread Supplier to the Royal Shakespeare Company.

  • Each year we make enough thread to go into 8 billion pairs of jeans - that's one for every person on the planet
  • Every month Coats produces enough thread to stretch all the way to the sun
  • More than 450 million pairs of shoes are made every year using Coats' thread
  • More than 100 million car airbags are made using Coats’ Performance Materials thread every year
  • In 1879 Thomas Edison used Coats' thread in his experiments to invent the light bulb
  • Our Red Heart knitting and crochet yarn brand has been named 'America’s Most Recommended' by the Women’s Choice Award for three years running
  • Our flame retardant Performance Materials threads can withstand temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius
  • Coats is the second largest supplier of zips to global brands