DELIVERING a £395 million public investment programme in social housing, significant upgrades to schools and new facilities for leisure, culture and sport is ambitious, if not admirable, in the current economic climate.
Supporting the latest moves towards an ambitious long-term programme of works, East Ayrshire Council is embarking on a highly-focused recruitment campaign for 14 new building and planning professionals.
Andrew Kennedy, the council’s head of facilities and property management explains: “Working closely with our local communities, we’ll be aiming to boost employment skills and personal development, enhance standards of wellbeing and enhance community safety.
“We’re also aiming to use our buildings and assets more efficiently, promote town centre living and support older people to live independently.
“By accelerating our investment programme we believe we can achieve these ambitions for our communities and also deliver improvements and efficiencies in our services.”
For East Ayrshire, this translates into a significant building programme including over 400 new council houses, and over £200m being invested in new and upgraded school buildings - including over £100m for school campuses in Cumnock and Kilmarnock.
Kennedy adds: “As well as supporting our children’s learning, our approach is to maximise opportunities for our communities to use our schools, by offering new facilities in leisure, culture and sport.”
Seven new posts to further augment the architecture and construction team in terms of project management, quantity surveying, technical expertise and resource management have been created.
“The focus will be on delivering large scale projects and specialist skills for new build designs, refurbishment of historic buildings, schools, home building, museums and office accommodation,” says Kennedy.
He added: “There are opportunities for experienced professionals who can lead integrated design teams and recent graduates.
“I am keen to see candidates who share our long-term vision for East Ayrshire’s communities and who understand how well-designed buildings can change people’s lives for the better.”
His colleague, Michael Keane, head of planning and economic development agrees.
He is conducting a similar search for candidates to fill another seven posts, comprising three senior planners, three planning officers and a planning administrator.
Keane explained: “The planning service will be working closely with colleagues across the council to drive forward our ambitious new-build programme.
“In addition to supporting these developments, we are also seeing more complex applications coming forward for a wide range of projects – from renewable energy, restoration, regeneration, housing and leisure.
“These are all positives for East Ayrshire and we see the Planning and Economic Development service as having a crucial role to play in driving such economic growth – and we are actively engaged with businesses, assisting them with their expansion plans.
“This would be impossible without a proactive and efficient planning service.
“The additional staff will give businesses and developers greater confidence that we are creating the right environment and conditions for their growth and expansion.
“Looking to the future, we are working to develop skills and entrepreneurial ambition among our young people, building on our local strengths in engineering, food, drink and tourism.
“In this we are working collaboratively with our neighbouring authorities and the Scottish Government to develop a growth deal for Ayrshire.
“There is a real skill in bringing all this together, as well as balancing the environmental and financial pressures we face, in order to deliver the services our communities need and deserve.
“Ours is not a traditional view of planning and we’re looking for innovative and creative people who can rise to these challenges and help us deliver on our ambitions for all our communities.”
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