Other Activity Areas in the Thames Gateway
As well as physical regeneration, the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) is involved in a number of other key areas in the Thames Gateway. Our aim is to ensure sustainable prosperity, through improving education, building new homes and protecting the environment. We plan to ensure that the Thames Gateway is an exemplar of modern living, truly a place to live, work and spend quality leisure time.
SEEDA is funding two projects in North Kent aimed at developing social enterprise provision for the voluntary and community sector:
Action Now – repair and refurbishment of “The Old Town Hall” in Gravesend to provide a social enterprise centre based on catering and the promotion of arts and culture. It will include a Café and Function Hall for related activities. Linkages have been established with local training colleges and institutions that provide training for arts and catering to provide both experience in the commercial sector and exploration into employment opportunities.
Medway Community Enterprise Hub – funding of a project manager to take forward the development of a new community enterprise hub at Watermill Wharf within the Strood Riverside development. This aim is to provide dedicated accommodation for embryonic and young social enterprises emerging from the community and voluntary sector.
SEEDA is also funding a suite of employability projects across North Kent which aim to help ensure that local people benefit from the wide range of training and employment opportunities arising from physical and social regeneration investment.
Employ Kent Thameside – set up with partners, including Job Centre Plus, and based on best practice models, this project assists people to attain higher levels of skills across industry sectors, with an initial focus on the construction sector in Kent Thameside, to help them benefit from local regeneration opportunities.
Medway Jobsmatch – aims to assist the needs of nearly 10,000 economically inactive people in Medway who have faced difficulties in accessing job opportunities. The project complements and works in conjunction with employment services offered by JobCentre Plus, whose focus is towards supporting people of working age from welfare into work only.
Skill Swale - aims to improve access for residents to training opportunities and provide improved information, advice and guidance to local residents and schools on jobs and training opportunities.
SEEDA also funds other initiatives in North Kent aimed at upskilling North Kent residents which specifically target deprived communities and provide added assistance:
Re-Ignite - aims to improve the employability potential of the economically inactive, the unemployed and those on low incomes from disadvantaged wards and neighbourhoods in Medway, including All Saints, Brook Lines, Twydall, Strood and Melville and Brompton.
Project SCORE – programme to improve basic skills and provide training opportunities in key life skills such as literacy, numeracy, ICT and English as a second language (ESOL), to Levels 1 and 2 to increase access to the employment opportunities arising from the regeneration of North Kent.
Learning & Skills is vital to the future of the Gateway and two SEEDA initiatives are promoting learning and skills opportunities across North Kent.
The North Kent Learning and Skills Project provides a co-ordinated response across North Kent through the Gateway Knowledge Alliance (GKA) to the skills needs through funding three Learning Co-ordinators in Kent Thameside, Medway and Swale that have developed specific learning plans for each local areas and who will take forward initiatives to address the learning and skills needs within them, also delivering a capital programme, including a developing a learning resource centre – (also funded by SEEDA) - at Kent Science Park
The North Kent Construction Skills (NoKCS) project helps bridge the skills gaps in the construction industry in Thames Gateway Kent through an employer-led approach to training and employment. This aims to both enhance the skill levels of existing employees and ensure that the residents of North Kent have every opportunity to share in the benefits that a buoyant, competitive and sustainable construction sector will bring.
SEEDA’s commitment to supporting the community is highlighted through two projects in Kent that ensures that all the opportunities of regeneration are captured by local residents and that the public sector is working together effectively to achieve this:
A Swale Community Development Officer - has been recruited to ensure that the delivery of new employment, housing and leisure opportunities at Queenborough & Rushenden is sustainable and benefits both existing and new communities
Thames Gateway Kent Partnership (TGKP) - created to promote, facilitate and co-ordinate action at sub regional level across the 4 local authority districts within the area to encourage sustainable growth in the Thames Gateway Kent area.
Connectivity is paramount to the success of the Gateway, with the three RDAs in the Greater South East covering the nation’s busiest ports, airports and only international rail connection, an effect of which results in a considerable volume of freight transiting the South East. In order to ensure adequate provision of infrastructure in terms of road and rail links, interchanges and terminals, there is a need to align policy and investment across the greater region.
On top of this, SEEDA aims to ensure that businesses and people in the Thames Gateway have quick and reliable access to domestic, international markets and global gateways
It also aims to ensure that the remaining areas of the Greater South East continue to develop and benefit from world class transport links
Other targets include:
Reducing the impact of Thames Gateway on the environment and congestion levels by using sustainable methods of transport and seeking modal shift to less polluting alternatives
Providing communication links required by present and future businesses through electronic, optical and satellite technologies
To produce an overarching policy on Freight and Logistics in the Greater South East, focused on the Port Dubai Gateway port (formerly Shellhaven).
Culture makes a dynamic contribution to developing sustainable communities, economic development, the visitor economy and developing a sense of place, identity and profile. Establishing the distinctiveness of the Thames Gateway will impact positively on our ability to attract and retain talent.
We need the Thames Gateway to be a place where people will choose to live, work and visit. The more we can develop and celebrate the distinctiveness of the Thames Gateway and raise the profile of its various cities and towns internationally, the more it will attract communities, business and investment.
SEEDA has invested in the National Museums project at the Historic Dockyard, Chatham. As well as providing a sustainable re-use for the early 19th Century No. 1 Smithery, a Scheduled Ancient Monument and Grade II listed building, the project will improve public access to internationally pre-eminent museum collections of maritime models with enhanced facilities for research and education, as well as interpreting these and other collections in dynamic and thematic displays. But culture is not only about buildings and museums. Last year the Tour of Britain cycle race took place in Medway, ending in Canterbury, and the Tour de France this year starting in London, attracting two billion people to the streets of Kent – a popular manifestation of cultural values through sport.
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