MORE than 200 Northumbria University students have been taking part in a new initiative designed to give them a taste of what it’s like to work on a major building development.
Durham-based property and energy firm the Banks Group has challenged the students to come up with ideas on how a redevelopment scheme should look at one of its sites at the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle.
The students, who are in the second year of BSc degree courses in planning and development, estate management, building surveying and quantity surveying, were split into teams and had one week to carry out a development appraisal study of the site.
This included market research, design work, cost projection and valuation, before presenting their findings and final proposals to a panel of expert judges.
The panel included university lecturers, a surveyor and a director from the Banks Group, a planning officer from Newcastle City Council and other industry representatives.
The winning team – Ashley Parkinson, Michael Linnane, William Rowden, Hugo Black, James Wood, James McGlaughlin, Linzi Garrett, Andrew Robson, Peter Kulik and Michael Lakey – put forward a mixed-use scheme, which included apartments, offices and shops, and was rewarded with £200 of HMV vouchers as a reward.
Barney Pilgrim, managing director of Banks Project Services, part of the Banks Group, said: “The winning team produced a high-quality proposal which demonstrated a good understanding of the area, the market and the development costs of taking it forward, and was very much in keeping with the stated priorities of the local planning authority and the developer themselves.
“All the participants in this programme acquitted themselves extremely well, and it was especially pleasing to see how they quickly adapted to working together in their different roles in order to produce their proposals.
“Projects such as this give students invaluable hands-on experience of how development teams work in practice and we’re confident that the experience will stand them in good stead after they graduate and enter the industry for real.”