COMMERCIAL and residential vinyl flooring specialist Polyflor is celebrating 100 years of manufacturing in Whitefield.

And this year also marks the centenary of Polyflor's parent company, James Halstead PLC, which has its headquarters in neighbouring Radcliffe.

Polyflor's factory is located at Radcliffe New Road where Halstead's expansion into a flourishing family-run global business has been managed by four generations of its own dynasty of entrepreneurs.

Established by James Halstead himself in 1915, the company’s original trade was the waxing and showerproofing of cloth for raincoats, before expanding into flooring in 1934.

After chemist Bill Roberts experimented with PVC to create a practical and resilient floorcovering at their Whitefield factory, “Poly-Flor” vinyl flooring was launched in 1954 when a 24-year-old Geoffrey Halstead, the group’s current executive chairman, started up his sales operation.

After persuading many contractors to move from promoting and installing existing linoleum products to working with more advanced “Poly-Flor” vinyl flooring, the investment in the market paid off as vinyl flooring soon became the company’s most profitable product.

Since pioneering the development of homogeneous vinyl flooring in 1950s, Polyflor has become the UK market leader for commercial vinyl floorcoverings with dominant market share. Now, Polyflor manufactures a wide range of high quality and high performance flooring products, from safety flooring to luxury vinyl, which can be installed in homes, offices, hospitals, schools and retail interiors.

Polyflor employs around 500 people across its original manufacturing site in Whitefield and its sales and marketing office in Royton, Oldham. In 2010, Polyflor also acquired a new heterogeneous sheet manufacturing site in Teesside.

Now a well-established global organisation which is going from strength to strength, Polyflor has international subsidiaries across the world including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong, Ireland, Norway and most recently India, Canada and the Middle East.

Mr Geoffrey Halstead said: “After James Halstead Ltd was started in 1915 with just three employees and four machines in our factory, we’ve come an awfully long way but are still close to our roots. We’re proud to be a UK manufacturer and to have the Polyflor brand known globally as one of the leaders in the flooring industry who are 'covering the world.'”

James Halstead PLC reported a turnover of £223.5 million and pre-tax profit of £41.9 million for the financial year ending June 2014.