Joanne James attended a careers taster day for Year 10 pupils at St Cuthbert’s High School in Rochdale.

Joanne talked to the pupils about her career path into construction and the various exciting careers available for girls and boys in the construction industry.

Joanne then set them some tasks to complete in teams – Programme of Works Activity where pupils had to work through 15 construction tasks and put them in the order they would be completed on site, then think about the roles that would be involved in these tasks.

The children then had great fun building some spaghetti towers using spaghetti pasta and marshmallows. 

“I just wanted to reiterate my thanks to you all for supporting our Experience of Work day today. The students have had such a good day and got so much out of it. The time and energy that you put into today to produce an engaging and productive day for the students has been phenomenal.  This kind of day would not be possible without volunteers like you and the brilliant sessions that you had planned, so from all of our staff and students, a huge thank you.”

Jo Holt, Careers Lead, St Cuthbert’s High School, Rochdale

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PLP Construction and Adapt Civils celebrate as £750m framework announced

Great Places Housing Group has placed social value at the heart of its new £750m Innovation Chain North framework of Contractors and Consultants as the successful organisations on the new four-year framework are announced.  PLP Construction Ltd and Adapt Civils Ltd have been successful in being appointed to the social housing, modular housing and groundworks lots.

The framework has been designed to support delivery of new homes across the north of England, not only to support Great Places’ very ambitious development programme but also those of other Housing Associations operating across the north of England.

The framework renewal saw a 56 per cent increase in bidders seeking to deliver works and services; 183 companies applied to supply the framework. The majority of bidders applied for multiple lots, and in total 726 bids were evaluated across the 23 lots. 

In total 113 suppliers – 30 Contractors and 83 Consultants – were successful.

The successful organisations were selected based on their technical competence, price and their commitment to social value.

The new £750m framework will run until June 2024.

Social value pledges, including apprenticeships, work experience opportunities and volunteering hours were proposed by all suppliers and through a collaborative approach, we will be seeking these pledges to be applied on every new development. 

Helen Spencer, Great Places’ Director of Development, said: “We are delighted to be working with PLP Construction Ltd and Adapt Civils Ltd on our new ICN framework. We are confident they will be able to work with us and the clients of ICN in delivering the sector’s extensive development ambitions in the North. We were delighted to have a huge response from the market and receive high quality proposals and substantial social value pledges for our communities. We are now looking forward to mobilising the framework and working together on new projects with PLP Construction Ltd supporting us with new build housing, modular housing and groundworks 

Joanne Whitehead, Great Places’ Procurement and Performance Manager, said: “Well done to PLP Construction Ltd and all the organisations who have been awarded a place on the framework. We received a large number of high quality bids and we now have an excellent group of contractors and consultants covering a wide range of disciplines to support our housing delivery ambitions. Great Places and the other housing providers who access the framework look forward to working with them all in the future.

It was great to be involved with Redwood School 6^th Form doing interview practice with students helping them to prepare for their internships.  Such an inspirational school and students.