Progress is being made on the £200 million Yorkshire Energy Park, a major development scheme that will create up to 4,480 jobs in the Humber, attracting a significant inward investment in the heart of the UK’s Energy Estuary.
The Shared Agenda team has been working with Sewell Investments and other investors behind the development to bring it to fruition through complex project management including supporting on the planning process, land and property negotiations, and community engagement. The development has many complexities which have involved financials, legal elements, commercial viability, national political interest, managing technical teams and everything associated with a scheme of this scale.
As well as ensuring a commercial proposition, the Shared Agenda team has worked closely with local authorities, town and parish councils and the local community to bring people on board with the scheme and showcase the benefits that this will bring in terms of investment, skills, and future-proof jobs.
Cameron Wood came onto the Yorkshire Energy Park scheme as a Graduate and has since been promoted to Junior Consultant. He now takes on his own work streams and leads on multiple projects as part of it. He said;
“Everything that encompasses Yorkshire Energy Park is extremely complex and on a very large scale, so I was fortunate to take this on as my first project fresh out of university.
“Since then, I’ve been exposed to many aspects of Shared Agenda’s expertise, and it’s allowed me to develop and progress in my role quite significantly over the past couple of years.
“I’ve been heavily involved in developing the off-site mitigation works to protect the biodiversity of the site, setting up hydrological monitoring and weather stations on site, and working closely with ecologists, Natural England, and the Environmental Agency to ensure statutory requirements and obligations are being met.
“Community engagement and public consultations have been another crucial aspect of the process, and the next step is getting local school students excited about what’s to come. I hope to spark their interest in the wide range of opportunities available from careers in the energy and technology industries, to routes into higher education, and everything in between.”
Yorkshire Energy Park has a target of 80% local labour through the construction period, along with the creation of trainee, graduate, and apprenticeship opportunities, which will ensure considerable social return on investment. The National Centre of Excellence in partnership with the University of Lincoln will also be fundamental in crafting the next generation of leaders in key industries, including energy, data, and advanced manufacturing.
Dan Simmons, Associate Director of Developments for Shared Agenda added;
”We work in partnership with many public sector bodies through our estates consultancy work across the health and education sector, whilst also managing major commercial regeneration schemes like this.
“Yorkshire Energy Park has been many years in the making and the scheme has increasingly attracted national political interest. There are multiple layers of stakeholders and disciplines that have come together to deliver the project thus far, and we’ll continue to work collaboratively with all parties to bring its vision to life.”
