Secretary of State visits Coastal's Urban Village Regeneration Scheme

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Secretary of State for Wales visits Swansea regeneration project
( Last Updated: 07-02-2012 )
Cheryl Gillan the Secretary of State for Wales visited the Urban Village project in the centre of Swansea last week as part of her tour of South-Wales, visiting companies, projects and initiatives that are bucking the economic trend. As part of her tour the Secretary of State spoke at length to representatives of the Midas Construction team, who are delivering this high profile scheme, Coastal Housing Group and a range of apprentices and trainees who are involved on the scheme.
The purpose of the visit focused on promoting an agenda of innovation, job creation, collaboration and lateral thinking that is helping to sustain the local Economy and return it to growth.
Coastal Housing's £25 million Urban Village is being developed in phases with a series of new courtyard spaces linking off street parking, flexible ground floor retail and commercial space, shops and offices with food and drink outlets and 76 new apartments for rent.
At the centre of the village, The Hub, Wales' first "creative cluster," - is a purpose built office block for creative commercial businesses - architects, artists, fashion designers, musicians, media professionals and leisure software designers - allowing the creative supply chain to be situated in one place in a dedicated commercial and supportive environment. These creative industries will help create a vibrant place to work, shop and live. Many of the apartments will be let to people working in the hub industries
Coastal Housing is working alongside the City and County of Swansea and the Welsh Assembly Government, with the latter providing financial help from their Strategic Regeneration Area funding programme.
Development director at Coastal, Gerraint Oakley, said: "There is already strong demand for commercial space at the creative cluster. We have got people signed up, and we can be really flexible about space and welcome enquiries from the creative and retail sectors. We also aim to create some destination shopping outlets at The Village that people will want to travel to including clothing and delicatessens etc. Gerraint added: "On the development front the scheme will have generated around 320 construction jobs and a number of apprenticeship positions over its five years duration, plus around 426 full and part-time jobs once completed."
Alan Hope the Chief Executive of the Midas Group said:"We are delighted that the Secretary of State for Wales chose to visit the Urban Village scheme. It is a highly progressive mixed use regeneration scheme that clearly shows that Affordable Housing providers like Costal Housing are alive to the idea that the future for the sector is about diversification and sustainable live work communities".
The scheme is due to be completed in Summer 2012 and the Secretary of State expressed a desire to return to the Urban Village to see it opened and fulfilling its role in the revival of the city centre community.


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Secretary of State for Wales visits Swansea ... - Midas Group
Coastal Housing's £25 million Urban Village is being developed in phases with ... Alan Hope the Chief Executive of the Midas Group said:"We are delighted that ...
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Partnering in Swansea

Beyond Bricks and Mortar

Here are the "mug shots" of our latest apprentices, Jason above and Byron right.



I meat them on site last week to see how they're settling in at the Urban Village development in Swansea. Coastal Housing are part of the huge redevelopment of Swansea's Town centre. The plans are amazing, you can see them in the Coastal magazine ..... www.coastalhousing.co.uk/pdfs/Winter2010.pdf


The two new apprentices are both Bricklayers and have been on site for three weeks now. It has been a bit cold for any actual bricklaying to happen for an odd few days but both apprentices have done their fair share of what has gone up.



Coastal Housing has linked in with the Beyond Bricks and Mortar Team in Swansea to provide these opportunities for the two lads who are both from within a mile or so of site. We have lent our experience in assisting with interviews and supporting the site manager and subcontractor during the recruitment process. We will continue to offer our support to the team and of course to Byron and Jason.

The Beyond Bricks and Mortar initiative is much like the Targeted Recruitment and Training Project in that it uses the Can Do Toolkit within contracts to procure recruitment and training opportunities for residents in Swansea. So Voila the two new apprentices above.

Skills Cymru - Over 20,000 in three days.....

That's a lot of talking and a lot of freebies!

It took a bit of coordinating to say the least but we got there. And what an amazing turn out.

Thanks to an fantastic response from staff in all departments of Taff, Cadwyn and United Welsh we had a diverse range of skills and experience represented at Skills Cymru 2010.

Skills Cymru was an event launched by the Welsh Assembly Government earlier this year to promote the skills base and opportunities available within Wales. Integrate and a few of its members agreed to take part in order to show that a career within a Housing Association is not limited to being a lettings officer or carrying out repairs.

Our stand was not as elaborate as some, well most to be honest however I’m sure spending thousands of pounds on a display stand is not the best use of our money. We spoke to hundreds of people over the three days. The team nabbed teenagers looking for a freebie to have a chat, we spoke to college students looking for ideas of what to do next. All of whom were astonished at what really is involved in housing.

There was a large attendance on Saturday of people who were looking to retrain or change direction following being made redundant or loss of business for the self employed.

The event as a whole has been celebrated as a real success and I believe the coming together of Integrate members, though this was a huge laearning curve was a credit to those involved.

THANK YOU ALL

Great clipping - Ministers visit Jacksons Quay

Deputy Minister for Housing and Regeneration Jocelyn Davies AM today showed Budget Minister Jane Hutt the Jackson's Quay development in Barry where public money has helped to create job and training opportunities. It is hoped the principles used on the development can be used on other Welsh Assembly Government contracts to create even more opportunities.

Newydd Housing Association’s Jacksons Quay development in Barry has been built using the i2i Can Do Toolkit which provides guidance to Registered Social Landlords working towards the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) on making targeted recruitment and training a requirement of contracts.

The contractors at Jackson’s Quay, Mi-Space, have employed five apprentices during the building project as a result of the guidance. One apprentice has used the opportunity to develop his experience through further work placements with the construction team.

Students at Barry College have also been using the site on a regular basis as part of their studies, for example twenty-five Construction Design Technology students have been able to experience ‘tool box talks’ where they visit a site at all stages of construction to see the development at first hand.
A report on the first year of the Can Do Toolkit (Sept 2008 -2009) shows that 487 job and training opportunities have been created in the twelve organisations that have adopted the model. The report concludes that if the model was used across the £4bn annual public sector expenditure in Wales, this would create 4000 job and training opportunities a year.

The Deputy Minister said, “This is an excellent example of how an innovative approach can bring real benefits and contribute far more than just a roof over people’s heads.

“Wales is leading the way with this and is taking the model further to help small and medium enterprises and local employers to benefit from the investment we and our partners are making in Housing. I am delighted that I have been able to show the Business and Budget Minister how this scheme is working and how other areas where the Assembly Government is involved in letting contracts could follow this excellent model.”

Paul Roberts, Chief Executive of Newydd Housing Association said:

“We are delighted to be welcoming Jocelyn Davies AM, Deputy Minister for Housing and Regeneration and Jane Hutt AM, Minister for Budget and Business, to our exciting new housing development at Jackson’s Quay, Barry Waterfront.

“The Jackson’s Quay development, and all our developments across south Wales, reflects our commitment to tackling deprivation and economic inactivity by offering recruitment and training opportunities in partnership with our contractors.
"Working in partnership with contractors using the i2i project and the Can Do Toolkit means that together we are able to support the community ensuring that local people are given vital opportunities to learn and work in their own locality.”

May the (Heat)Force be with you

A few weeks ago I told you all about the new apprentices, Gemma and Kate starting at Heatforce Plumbing and Bathrooms. I'm glad to say everything is going very well.


They turned up so early on their first day their mentor Tony was thinking of giving them the office keys to open up the next day. I've spoken to them both a few times since they've started their apprenticeships, they're very happy with the mix of their day training at college then out on site at Taff and United Welsh properties. Kate told me "I get ribbed the same as everyone on site, I feel right at home already. I've also been surprised at how much hands on work both Gemma and I have had right from day 1"

The picture above was taken at about 8.00am one day last week for Heatforce and Construction Youth Trust, some of us don't exactly look our best at that time but Gemma and Kate(5th and 6th from left) have normally been on site an hour by then. Everyone joined in wearing the now legendary Pink Ladies hard hats and Hi Viz. At least it will give you a laugh.

Clare Watkins

Integrate Targetrd Recruitment and Training