The Best of South Tyneside
Stakeholder engagement, social value and being positive contributors to the communities and environments in which we operate, is a long-standing important aspect of our business.
They say that home is where the heart is and, for this reason alone, we were delighted to be headline sponsor of this year’s Best of South Tyneside Awards, a platform that recognises local heroes, businesses and volunteer groups within the borough who go above and beyond to support their local communities. It was a thrilling, highly entertaining and uplifting event that celebrated many fantastic people.
While Castle operates across England and Scotland, we are very much aware that South Tyneside is where we launched the business and is home to our UK headquarters.
Indeed, at Castle, we employ many people from the borough and, along with all our staff, they have made us the highly successful company we are today. It has given us enormous pride to watch them flourish within their roles by offering career development programmes and upskilling, an area in which we are increasingly investing.
Through our role as principal contractor for the build of the new South Tyneside College and Marine School, we have met a wide range of organisations and individuals who make the borough the great place that it is to live and work.
Our engagement programme for the college is moving at pace, and we are particularly focussed on linking with schools and young people seeking to work in the trades.
I am, therefore, happy to report that the first of a cohort of students studying T Level Building Services Engineering for Construction, are now gaining valuable work experience at the site.
They are undertaking various tasks, including participation in planning sessions with the project design team and assessing the role of Building Information Modelling, which is used to create and manage digital information throughout the entire lifecycle of a construction project.
The £95 million college project is a partnership between Tyne Coast College and South Tyneside Council and delivered by Castle. It is funded by Tyne Coast College, the North East Combined Authority as part of North East Mayor Kim McGuinness’ drive to revitalise high streets, Department for Education and UK Government.
Ryan and Oliver are the first of several T Level students who, from February to May, will undertake four-week, block training, under the guidance of college tutors and the Castle on-site operations team.
This is a wonderful opportunity for students to get a real feel for the construction sector and the day-to-day activity that takes place on a project such as this. We are liaising closely with the college to ensure that as many students as possible can benefit from the build stage. The Castle teams working on site, in conjunction with college tutors, have developed a programme of activity that will ensure maximum benefit to the students.
In addition to providing work experience for college students, Castle, through our trusted supply chain, will create five new apprenticeships at various stages of the college build project. We have also committed, wherever possible, to ensure that as high as 80% of subcontractors and service providers are based in the North East, so achieving strong social value and positive, local economic impact.
To date, by measuring the impact of our social value initiatives, generated via the college build, we estimate to have delivered more than £1.3 million in local economic benefit.
For more detail on our stakeholder and community engagement initiatives, go to www.castlecommunity.co.uk