Education to employment
We are committed to engaging, educating and employing the local community through our projects. We showcase the opportunities that residential and regeneration projects provide for pupils in local education, such as the events we run with Cambridge Launchpad, and for adults who are retraining in their careers or returning to the labour market after a period of unemployment.
We help drive awareness so that more people consider working in the industry and understand the variety of career opportunities available which may be otherwise ‘hidden’, such as our successful platinum partnership with Women into Construction.
We do this through a variety of initiatives including:
- career taster days
- work experience placements and traineeships
- working with partners to deliver entry level qualifications such as CSCS cards
- increasing diversity through partnerships with third party organisations
- providing energy awareness training to local residents.
Business Support and Mentoring
We are passionate about ensuring the benefits of our developments are sustainable and allow communities to grow and develop after the project has finished. This is done through using expertise in our business and supply chain to provide tailored support and mentoring of local businesses, social enterprises, and voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) to help growth in those organisations.
We have a commitment to ensuring the supply chain we work with are locally sourced and we work with ConstructionLine to identify these at the earliest stages in our projects, recognising that this supports our drive for local labour and wider economic benefits for the communities we are working in.
Community Belonging and Connectivity
Many of the communities in which we work have an already strong sense of belonging, we want to focus on how we enhance that. This may be through sports and health initiatives, sponsoring/hosting community events and fun days, or through the provision of homes for local homeless residents.
We also aim to support initiatives for people who suffer from physical and mental health issues and who may feel disengaged from the community. We also support digital inclusion groups for elderly residents. Ensuring that people feel connected to their communities is important to us.
Safe and Healthy Lives
There are many ways we help to deliver healthy living for communities. We encourage a wide range of healthy eating initiatives, provide financial and volunteering support for community gardens and allotments, and ensure access to outdoor exercise via footpath and cycle path provision.
Healthy environments mean ecological enhancements and biodiversity net gain through landscaping and habitat provision, and air quality improvements are helped by implementation of pedestrian links to public transport and prioritising pedestrians over cars. We have committed to measure ourselves against well-established criteria via an annual prosperity index as well as regular external auditing.
Whilst the prosperity of a community is just one measure, it does demonstrate the impact of the work we do and will ensure our developments are a force for positive social change for generations to come.
We have established 3 working groups with a specific social focus:
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Communities and Customers
We take a resident-led approach to regeneration, to ensure the developments we create in existing neighbourhoods benefit the local community
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People Come First
Our internal approach to social value incorporates diversity and inclusion initiatives including our partnership with Women in Construction, staff volunteering days and work / life balance and well-being policies.
