This area contains the following information about Construction:
Supporting the construction sector in Hastings & St Leonards is a top priority for three main reasons:
There is a national shortage of skills for construction jobs - every year there is a gap of around 75,000 jobs in the sector. The skills shortage is especially felt in the South East, due to several major building schemes in the Thames Valley, Brighton and for the Olympic Games.
Construction planned in Hastings on Station Plaza, Ore Valley, Queensway and the town centre will amount to more than £250m. Local construction workers have a one-off opportunity to access training and gain employment. It is vital that local workers are able to take advantage of the new opportunities. We are working with developers, training providers and employers, to develop a Construction Charter. Employers will be encouraged to take on trainees and apprentices and local firms will be invited to tender. Health and safety standards guidance will also be provided for local contruction firms.
We support business networking organisations like Profitnet, which brings together manufacturing companies, construction and technical services, hospitality businesses, creative and media companies, start-ups, and social enterprises. Working with such organisations enables us to understand the needs of local business and find effective ways to satisfy them.
It is our priority to make best possible use of the relatively limited land available for industrial development. We work closely with Sea Space and Locate East Sussex (Inward Investment Agency, based in Hastings) to match sites and locations with new and growing local businesses, and inward-investors.
We also work alongside Sussex Enterprise, 1066 Enterprise, Sea Space, South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) and the Chamber of Commerce. We are working together towards a high quality, comprehensive and integrated package of support, which meets the needs of all local businesses.
Hastings has been awarded £3.6m over the next three years from the Department for Communties and Local Government's Local Enterprise Growth Intiative (LEGI) [Glossary]. The programme tackles deep-rooted obstacles to enterprise in deprived communities through a range of targeted and inter-connected interventions to be delivered by a variety of partners.
The Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) is a joint programme between the Department for Communities and Local Government, HM Treasury and the Department for Trade and Industry. It is a neighbourhood renewal programme that aims to increase entrepreneurial activity in the local population; support the growth and reduce the failure rate of locally-owned businesses; and attract appropriate inward investment and franchising - making use of local labour resources.
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Regeneration in Hastings & Bexhill will bring an unprecedented amount of construction activity over the next few years.
Hastings Borough Council is working with developers, businesses, skilled trades people and new generations of trainees to ensure local people and firms benefit from the increase in training and employment opportunities this activity will bring.
Between 2006 and 2010 the South East will need, on average, 11,710 fully skilled new entrants per year - including 1,500 Architects & Technical Engineers,1,500 Electricians, 1,390 Woodtrades and 1,300 Bricklayers.
Source: CITB
Skills shortages have a clear effect on the construction industry. Bridging the skills gap will bring important economic benefits for Hastings & Bexhill and make regeneration projects even more effective.
An anticipated £450 million will be spent over the next 5 years on regeneration in Hastings and Bexhill.
In the Region…
As a step towards reducing skills shortages in the area, we are coordinating Hastings Thriving Construction Initiative, which brings together all the important parties in construction to work towards a better future for the industry.
One of the main roles of Hastings Thriving Construction Initiative is to coordinate a charter for developers, contractors and suppliers to show their commitment to best practice and invest in the future of the industry. The charter, known as Hastings Construction Training and Employment Charter, is now up and running and ready for people to sign up.
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The charter provides the following opportunities:
Those who sign up to Hastings Construction and Training Charter commit to:
These ‘in principle’ objectives are backed up by a set of targets and a monitoring framework. We will provide support to everyone who signs up to the charter, whether they are public and private sector developers, procurers, contractors or suppliers.
Contracting bodies, such as developers, councils and housing associations, which sign up to the charter will include its targets in their contract specifications. It is hoped that the principles of the charter will be filtered down to other organisations in the ‘contracting chain’, such as sub-contractors and suppliers.
Any contract that incorporates the charter will go through the normal tendering process and so all firms bidding for that contract will have to comply with the charter’s principles, and this will be monitored throughout the process. If, for any reason, the charter was not complied with in the tendering process, this would have to be justified.
Contractors, employers, suppliers
All are encouraged to adopt the charter as part of their corporate objectives, whether it forms part of a contract or not.
Contractors that sign up to the charter will get the opportunity to enhance their business skills, enabling them to be more competitive.
We will support those who sign up to the charter by:
Construction Training and Employment Charter for Hastings
We the undersigned support the objectives of the charter, and will endeavour to progress these objectives wherever possible.
We also commit to meeting the Charter’s Targets as set out below
Companies employing ten or more staff in total shall
The developer, contractor and sub-contractor will submit monitoring data covering the above targets to HBC’s Construction
The areas to be monitored are:
In addition there will be regular reviews of local competitiveness in tendering, and usage of the local supply chain.
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This FREE web-based service matches the skills of job seekers with local vacancies. It is available to all sectors, including construction and includes extensive lists of vacancies together with a wealth of advice and support for businesses and job seekers and information on training events.
If you're looking for a job, you can use the job hunting pages to search for vacancies but remember that our own Job Opportunities pages remain the only official source of information on vacancies within Hastings Borough Council. If you're an employer you can advertise a vacancy for free on the employers pages.
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This page last updated: 09/01/2008