ADMIRAL has announced it will be closing its Newport city centre office - which employs hundreds of people - as part of what the company is billing as a 'consolidation'.

The Welsh financial services provider says it is "consolidating its South Wales property portfolio in response to its commitment to hybrid working".

The changes will see the company close two offices in Cardiff and Swansea, in addition to the phased closure of its Admiral House office in Newport.

Those currently working in Newport will, after the closure, be transferred to the Cardiff office.

Admiral Head of Property, Huw Llewellyn, said: “We believe that giving our people choice and flexibility on how they work is critical to their enjoyment of their role, and this translates into supporting our customers and great business performance.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how we work and we have learned that we can continue to operate effectively while working differently, and remotely.

"Our business continues to grow but our people are embracing a more flexible, hybrid approach and are telling us it’s how they want to work moving forward, as they’ve seen a positive impact on their wellbeing and work-life balance.

"We’re excited by the opportunities it brings us, where colleagues can spend time working both at home, and together as teams in our offices working collaboratively.

"There’s no doubt that the flexibility of approach will help us attract and retain the top talent in the market and that’s important as we think about the future of our business.”

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Mr Llewellyn said that Admiral remained "committed to the South Wales region" despite the closures. 

"However our hybrid working approach means we’re able to accommodate our growing colleague population across a reduced property portfolio," he said.

"This does mean that we will transition out of our Newport site at Admiral House and our colleagues based there will eventually use our Cardiff offices.

"We’re immensely proud to be part of the Newport community and although we’ll no longer have an office base in the city, we’ll continue to be represented by many of our colleagues who live locally.”

The 'consolidation' has already seen Admiral close the Ellipse building (Swansea) earlier this year, and it will also exit Capital Quarter (Cardiff) over the course of 2022, meaning an updated property portfolio of Admiral Group House and Llansamlet in Swansea, and Ty Admiral and Capital Tower in Cardiff.

In Newport, the firm will begin to reduce the amount of space it occupies in Admiral House by 50 per cent from January 2022, vacating the site completely from 2023.

The phased approach,Admiral says, is to enable the company to support the landlord in appointing replacement tenants.

Admiral currently has around 1,000 of its 7,500 South Wales-based staff working across its offices.