CULS Articles
which we intend to rollout more widely, is enabling hands on training, side by side with housebuilders, to support direct routes to employment in construction. From a standing start at the start of the year, the CITBfunded Centre has so far supported 180 learners, with 69 now job ready and being supported into employment. Working across the north of Huntingdon, St Neots and the wider Fenland area for the last 7 years has meant we have learnt a lot, which we are now applying to the delivery of Waterbeach (just north of Cambridge) and Wintrigham (St Neots). For Waterbeach in particular this will involve becoming a key partner in the Cambridge City Homeless projects which focus on supporting young people out of homelessness and into sustainable employment. Equally, with two key former military sites among our projects, we are also working with military veterans as part of our commitment to the Armed Forces Covenant and supporting veterans to
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transition to civilian life, ensuring they understand how in demand their life skills are especially to the construction industry. Indeed, with the growing scale of our projects (we now have over 40,000 residential plots and six new settlements in delivery) Urban&Civic now employ a full-time in-house lead dedicated to supporting skills development. With the backdrop of 15-20 years of
Cambridge University Land Society 2019
build out at each scheme, we have an opportunity to use the knowledge gained from one project and the scale of overall delivery to support many more people to find their own pathway to long term employment. At Chelsfield we sought to do the right thing for both the shareholders and the wider stakeholder community. Much of this went unreported. We are
now more experienced and targeted in our approach and the benefits and outputs are much more quantifiable. The 20 year visible corporate shift I see stimulating wider engagement is largely business as normal for us. Successful large scale development has always been more than just delivery. In this regard the corporate world is playing catch up and we welcome that.