Robyn Hewson spoke to Alan McBride, technical director at Muse and one of the panellists at the Blackpool Vision breakfast, to hear how the developer has been involved in the regeneration of Blackpool over the last fifteen years.
00:10I'm Alan McBride, Technical Director of Muse Places in the North West.
00:14So we're having a Blackpool Vision event today and we've heard about all the exciting developments that have been going on.
00:19Muse has been working with Blackpool Council for 15 years now, haven't you?
00:22So I wonder if you could share some of the things that have taken place over those years and what you've delivered.
00:27Thank you, we're really proud that Muse has been working with Blackpool Council for 15 years.
00:31That's about the length of time, it's a testament to the strength of the partnership and the power of the partnership.
00:37In that 15 year period we've got an amazing track record of developing six buildings.
00:42We've done the Sainsbury's Superstore, we've done the council offices, we've done the refurbishment of the Deansgate multi-storey car park.
00:49Recently we've completed the DWP office building in the centre of Blackpool.
00:55That is a significant investment in the centre of Blackpool.
00:58It's a 215,000 square foot building.
01:01It's a big building for anywhere in the North West and it's a really fantastic investment in the centre of Blackpool.
01:07Latterly, we've also finished the Holiday Inn Hotel last year, which is a 144 bed four-star hotel and it's recently won an IHG UK customer service award for the best service hotel in the UK.
01:23We've just started in sight with an MOD office building, which is bringing another 1,000 civil servants into Blackpool town centre.
01:30It's about a total of 4,000 in conjunction with DWP and that office building is due to finish in February of next year.
01:39Wow, that's fantastic. So much has gone on. And kind of integral to all of that in the last 15 years has been social value, hasn't it?
01:46So what are some of the ways that Mews has been kind of really focusing on that in the entire weeks?
01:50Well, social value is really fundamental to us as a business and we employ it on all of our projects and we work really hard to maximise social value on our schemes.
02:00As part of the tender process, the contractors have to submit a social value plan and we assess that.
02:07It represents nearly 20% of the bid criteria and we follow that through.
02:12So the contractors, when they're appointed, we then review that plan for social value, we make it current, we make it based on a local needs analysis, we agree it with the local authority.
02:25It goes into the building contract and the contractor has to deliver on it.
02:29And in terms of that plan, what does that include? That would include all the things that you'd expect from us.
02:35So, you know, getting leaked back into employment, apprentices, maximising local spend, maximising local employment.
02:42But one thing that Mews and Vinci have done in particular, and people can see that we're really proud of, is an on-site skills academy.
02:50And we ran two of those. It was a cohort of 10 young school leavers on each of those.
02:56And they had little or no qualifications. They were unlikely to get employment unless they came onto this course.
03:03What did they do? They did one or two days a week of being at college.
03:07The rest of the time was spent on site, learning skills such as plastering and bricklaying, concreting and groundworks.
03:14Vinci, like in their team and the subcontractors, put their time and their materials and the tools in for free.
03:20And I'm really pleased and I'm really delighted that the outcome there was that 80% of those young school leavers have got permanent employment,
03:29either with Vinci subcontractors or other construction companies, and we all find stuff.
