We were delighted to welcome two groups of construction students from Truro and Penwith College to the Garden Village site as part of an ongoing initiative to inspire the next generation of skilled workers.
Delivered in five phases over a 20 to 30 year period, the Garden Village will provide up to 3,800 high-quality homes, two primary schools, an energy centre, key utilities, community and retail centres, and live-work and co-living spaces, supported by an integrated transport network.
35% of the new homes will be affordable homes for local people, together with homes for older people, people with disabilities, student health workers and other key workers.
Successfully delivering this project means that the Garden Village will be looking to recruit a significant number of construction professionals during the next 30 years.
Our project team has established strong links with Truro and Penwith College, hosting a number of visits from students over the past three years.
During this most recent visit, the young people were given an overview of the development from Matt Bell and Alex Tapley from Arcadis, Birgit Hontzsch, from Cornwall Council, and Richard Cleghorn and Lindsey Faulkner from Treveth LLP, before being shown the land which has been earmarked for the new primary school.
Introducing students to a large project in its earlier stages helps them to see the scheme as a whole, rather than just focusing on the construction side of things.
The Garden Village will offer a range of opportunities for careers in construction, with the skills being gained by these construction students likely to be in great demand as the project progresses. A core target of the scheme is to employ local labour based in the community and the talk focused on emphasising to the students the variety of different job opportunities that may be available to them in the future.
Among the topics covered during the visit was the importance of sustainable practices in construction. Langarth Garden Village is committed to sustainability, with specific elements including the development of a geothermal district heat network, its own tree nursery and the use of sustainable urban drainage ponds (SUDs) to manage water.
As well as hearing about the plans for the new primary school and the innovative use of geothermal heating, the students were also told about the creation of the new parks, gardens and open spaces, together with the new skatepark and multi use games area, the ongoing construction of Fordh Langarth, the new road which links all part of the site.
The project team’s aim was to provide the students with an insight into how a project of the scale of Langarth Garden Village can be successfully delivered, whilst teaching them about the importance of sustainability and show how they could get involved in the future.
