On the 7th March the Kingsgrove team were delighted to spend the day inspiring a group of young female engineers from UTC Oxfordshire.
Five female engineering students from Year 11 had the chance to see all aspects of the development and the variety of careers involved, from homes still in the construction phase to the occupied houses and surrounding neighbourhood. They toured the site with representatives from St. Modwen, St. Modwen Homes, Cala Homes and Taylor Wimpey and had an opportunity to see how the housebuilders work together with St. Modwen as master developer to create Kingsgrove as a whole. They also viewed the wider site including the school, neighbourhood centre and woodland walk and learned about the requirement to build not just houses but a community and the infrastructure that supports it.
Dinny Shaw, Director of Planning at St. Modwen, said “I was so pleased to show the next generation of engineers the variety of roles and careers available in the development industry, to showcase the great work we have been doing at Kingsgrove and to answer their questions around the site.”
They were joined by representatives from South and Vale and Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership. Cat Armstrong, Community Employment Plan Advisor at OxLEP Skills said “The visit was a fantastic demonstration of a collaborative approach between developers at Kingsgrove, Wantage to showcase the vast range of careers available to women in the housebuilding industry. We know that these events are so important for attracting young people to the industry and also breaking the bias that currently exists in the industry. Thank you to all involved. Working with partners across the industry, OxLEP Skills hopes to create more opportunities like this in the future across Oxfordshire.”
The students’ key takeaways from the day were an understanding of the number of potential roles and opportunities available in the development industry and an appreciation of the high quality design of the houses on site.
This visit was part of a wider educational programme run by St. Modwen over the last few months. In 2021 students from King Alfred’s Academy and Abingdon and Witney College were shown around the site and discussed the careers available in construction, and earlier this year the team attended King Alfred’s Academy careers fair and took part in a mock interview session at Icknield Community College.