Luke Uttley’s playground legacy

Luke Uttley

An enthusiastic work experience graduate has taken a huge hop, skip and a jump into a career in the construction industry after helping design a new playground for a nursery in Middleton.

Luke Uttley, 24, from Heywood, has been on work experience with contractors Carillion who are developing 13 schools under the £200m Building Schools for the Future (BSF) investment programme.

Geography graduate, Luke has spent two weeks with the construction company learning about construction management and quantity surveying onsite.

Luke volunteered to redesign a playground to transform the bleak tarmac into a fun, bright and exciting children’s learning space. Luke’s vision is to create a race-track, alphabetic and numeric hopscotch games and multi-coloured fencing for Twinkle Toes, a private nursery based on school grounds. The work is expected to be completed in four weeks and Luke will be project managing. All materials will be donated by Carillion and sub-contractors working on the BSF project.

Luke said: “I’m honoured to have been offered this opportunity to leave a permanent legacy from my work experience. Managing this project is a huge responsibility but a chance to put my learning into practice. I have plans that will transform this playground, so watch this space.”

Luke was offered a voluntary position as part of the company’s commitment to provide work experience placements. In winning the contract with the council Carillion promised to provide 20 work experience placements and nine new permanent jobs over the lifetime of the Middleton Technology School project. Carillion and the council are working with Job Centre Plus to identify suitable candidates.

Councillor Peter Williams, cabinet member for economic development and customer services was thrilled to hear that high quality work experience opportunities were being offered to local people. “To tackle long-term unemployment we must be providing people with opportunities to up-skill. In a competitive marketplace practical experience is key and a positive reference can make all the difference.

"A vital part of regenerating our borough includes using the council's influence over major capital programmes to facilitate local labour agreements so that our young people and the unemployed gain essential skills, training and work experience opportunities working with our contractors. This helps to make sure that our communities and borough benefit fully. "