This year’s community benefits, which form part of North Lanarkshire Council’s new council house building tenders, have delivered 20 new jobs, 23 work experience placements, facilitated 26 careers events, eight site visits and two mentoring opportunities. In addition, financial and non-financial support benefited local communities.

The council is helping young people towards positive outcomes and work with education, supported enterprise and employability teams to help facilitate work experience and opportunities to positive destinations within construction.

Achievements include:

• Supporting Scottish Enterprise Week by facilitating delivery of construction-related education sessions.
• Marking International Women’s Day with sessions set up highlight women in construction.
• Events highlighting the range of career opportunities in construction. A series of interactive sessions were delivered to over 1,500 school pupils.
• Delivering bespoke training sessions to young people with additional support needs to prepare them for entering the world of work. Four pupils passed their CSCS (Construction Skills Certification Scheme) accreditation and have all secured apprenticeships with McTaggart Construction through the ‘No Limits’ Programme.
• Facilitating ‘Meet the Real Buyer’ events to engage with small businesses within the area to help them develop and grow their business.

Convener of housing, Councillor Michael McPake, said: “Maximising the delivery of community benefits is part of our evaluation process when we’re reviewing contracts for our new build projects and these benefits are key to supporting communities, future workforce and local people.

“In addition to regenerating our towns and communities across the area by building new homes, we’re also working closely with other council services and partners to roll out opportunities for local people and business. These benefits have a positive impact across our communities, and we’ll continue to put local people at the heart of our future plans to make North Lanarkshire the place to live, learn, work, invest and visit.”

Financial support is another aspect of community benefits. This included a £1,000 donation from the Petersburn site to purchase a 360-degree camera to record virtual construction videos for use in the immersive classroom.

A £1,080 donation is pledged from the council’s Brandon Street project to Forgewood Allotments group to rebuild raised beds for disabled plot holders and a further £3,000 earmarked for assistance at Muirhouse Primary School working with deprived young people.

The council’s Berwick Street development received a donation of £2,000 for materials which were bought and passed to our restorative justice team who built mud kitchens and planters for the Shawhead Family Centre.

A range of non-financial support has also been provided, benefiting schools and community groups within the area. This includes the donation of a range of items, training time and recycling excess construction-related materials.