New course puts city planners on the map thanks to Lifelong Learning

THE fact that regeneration is such an important part in life in most of our towns and cities made doing our first job with the Lifelong Learning Network all the more interesting and inspiring.

The network has helped to put together an innovative new course designed to improve regeneration planning by encouraging a more co-ordinated approach between the sometimes vast array of different strands involved in these redevelopments.

As the previous entry on this site explains, the Lifelong Learning Network for Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin encourage people who have been out of education to return to vocational learning in higher eduction.

The Learning Labs initiative, which the LLN organised along with several other providers, was launched at Stoke City's Britannia Stadium with its first intake of 32 students. New student Joanne Mayne is pictured with Tim Crossfield from the Lifelong Learning Network

The course, Developing Regeneration Practice, aims to help professionals including town planners, architects and transport policy officers work more effectively together.

 

The course has been accredited by Staffordshire University through the Lifelong Learning Network. Students will be able to gain credits for the course which could also enable them to work towards a Masters degree qualification.

The course has been set up by RegenWM, the region’s “centre of excellence” in regeneration, the North Staffordshire Regeneration Partnership, the Home and Communities Academy with the Lifelong Learning Network for Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin.

“The course will enable professionals to take their existing expertise and experience, as a planner, a community worker, an architect or a transport engineer and they’ll be able to apply it far more effectively in this wide field of regeneration,” said Conrad Parke, head of skills development at RegenWM.

 

“Traditionally people have to work together to deliver regeneration but they don’t learn how to do it, so it becomes a difficult process. But by going through this as a multi-disciplinary team they will come to a shared understanding of how to work together.”

 

He added that obtaining academic credits for the course was vital.

 

“The accreditation means that the students will get to the same level of understanding so as a team they will be able to operate a lot more smoothly, more efficiently and more effectively. So regeneration projects are quicker, meaning money is saved and the benefits of any scheme are maximised.

 

“Students will have something concrete and independently accredited to put on their CV that can be included in part of their continuing professional development and the accreditation adds a more rigorous element to what they will be learning.”

 

Tim Crossfield from the Lifelong Learning Network welcomed the introduction of the course and said it could prove hugely beneficial.

 

“The chance to see how things are being done in other areas can only be beneficial to practitioners in regeneration, to build on best practice and take that back to their own work place. To have their expertise recognised through higher education is of enormous benefit.

 

“This actually meets the very ethos of what the lifelong learning networks are charged with doing which is creating innovative learning opportunities that wouldn’t ordinarily be there.

 

“By gaining accreditation we’ve recognised an opportunity to add value and add higher educational recognition to students taking this programme which will encourage them to build on that work and move forward in higher education terms,” said Mr Crossfield, public sector and public service co-ordinator for the LLN.

 

The first group of students to take the course are mainly from Stoke-on-Trent City Council, involved in various aspects of the regeneration of the city centre and the creation and development of a university quarter in the city.

 

The course is made up of nine one-day sessions over three months. Students are taken on site visits to regeneration projects, attend master classes with national experts on particular aspects of regeneration and hold seminars to discuss what they have learnt and its relevance to their practical work.

 

The course will include visits to the regeneration projects in the centre of Sheffield and Nottingham

and to the newly created university quarter in Lincoln. Kevin Murray, an internationally known expert on master planning, and Dominic Church, senior policy advisor at The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, are both due to run a master classes.

Joanne Mayne, 34, a senior planning officer for Stoke-on-Trent City Council, from Tean, in Staffordshire, who was one of the new students at the launch, said: “This will bring everyone involved in regeneration closer.

 

“I work in planning for the city centre but through the course I will get more of an holistic view of regeneration, how planning links in with housing, with how people live their lives, like their health needs. The whole process needs to be joined up and the course will help that.

 

“I hope I can link this together with other courses I’m looking at, that separately wouldn’t have added to my CV but with accreditation I might be able to bring them together to add another qualification.”

 

Dr Barbara Emadi-Coffin, a senior lecturer in politics at Staffordshire University and an award manager for the course, said: “The course should up-skill planners because what people learn on the course they will pass on to colleagues, which will make regeneration planning far more effective and co-ordinated.”