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Community Involvement

Generating interest in regeneration at Southwark College

A two day event from 14- 15 July 2009 saw around thirty students of the St. Thomas The Apostle College in Peckham participate in a competition to generate ideas on redeveloping Elephant and Castle.

Lakehouse volunteers, Vijay Bhasod and Neil Jessop, teamed up with Hyde Housing Trust, Waterman, the City of London and Southwark Education Business Partnership to host the Regeneration Challenge. The idea behind the challenge was to put students into teams who would then prepare their ideas of how they would redevelop the area around Elephant and Castle in South London. They were then asked to present their schemes to a panel of judges including a Director of Hyde Housing Trust and a senior representative of Southwark Council.

Jon Brookes, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager for Lakehouse said "The ultimate aim of the project was to produce a scheme that would develop the students' interest in regeneration in their own environment; we were also hoping to stimulate their interest in careers in construction."

To this end they were given an insight into various specific construction related careers. Lakehouse successfully inspired the children to become passionate about the redevelopment of the area, as well as demonstrate the advantages of working on construction projects which would directly benefit their local community. Prizes were awarded for best presentation and best scheme and Neil Jessop was delighted that his team was one of the worthy winners.