Newark: Ambitious futures for the Town’s young people
Jay Charles, Newark Academy Student © Courtesy of the Charles Family
“If children are given opportunities to shape the future of where they live they are more likely to raise their own families there.”
Jay Charles is 13 and attends Newark Academy. In his entry to the Future Newark writing competition (which sought views from young people to inform Newark’s Town Investment Plan), Jay argued passionately for action on climate change and the need for us all to play our part, giving mother nature a chance to live on.
Other competition entrants shared Jay’s view that young people are the future of Newark and the more they are listened to, the more likely they are to see a future for themselves in the town.
“Why is the future important?”
Picking up on this theme, Newark Towns Fund Board Co-Chair, Tom Cartledge, asked fellow Board members to reflect deeply on the ‘Why?’ of Newark’s Town Investment Plan. For Tom, the CEO of Handley House, a Newark-based family business and global firm of built environment design specialists, Newark’s Town Investment Plan is as much about levelling up within Newark itself, as competing with other parts of the country.
“Everybody in our town deserves the opportunity to be part of a successful community,” he says. Like Jay, Tom sees Newark’s children as the Town’s future and therefore central to understanding and maximising opportunities.
“If our plans are for 3, 5, 10 and 20 years’ time, and we're asking people to buy into our vision, the people we want to talk to are the kids who are going to be the town of the future - particularly in a place like ours where there are challenges around social mobility,” says Tom.
Challenging multi-generational trends
Social mobility and education are recognised as key challenges in Newark’s Town Investment Plan. The town is amongst the least socially mobile places in Great Britain, while achievement in local secondary schools is below average. Over 1,000 children from Newark leave the Town each day for education, with many subsequently moving away permanently for higher education and employment opportunities.
As the latest generation of a family that’s always lived in the Newark area, Tom Cartledge bucked this trend but recognises the challenge.
“My mum will always tell you that I spent my whole life saying that I'd never live around Newark but actually it’s a great town. The challenge we had was limited job opportunities. Many of my friends from school left and have not come back.”
Tom recognises his story is an exception and, had he not had a family business to return to, he may have followed a different path. However, with colleagues on the Town Deal Board, Tom is committed to giving others the opportunity to stay and be successful by offering young people opportunities to thrive in the town and promoting positive local role models for them to aspire to.
Creating new pathways
Newark’s Town Investment Plan emphasises a range of learning routes to good quality local employment. There is a commitment to expand vocational and non-vocational pathways, building links between business and education and securing a Higher Education presence in the town. This includes a move to bring in T Level engineering qualifications that build on Newark's industrial heritage, strengthening ‘on-the-job’ training provision in the area for future opportunities linked to Ministry of Defence bases in nearby Lincolnshire.
The International Air & Space Training Institute (IASTI), led by Lincoln College Group and Aviation 360, will blend education with practical experience to establish a post 16 pathway to aviation and space industries. The scheme will welcome its first intake of students in September 2021.
For Tom and the Town Deal Board, creating a long-term plan for Newark which focuses on supporting young people means that “when they come to those decisions at 16, 17 or 18 years old about where they're going to go for the next level of learning they’ve already bought into the idea that this Town can provide for them and their families, the money, education, opportunities and vocations they need.”
Listening to the voices of young people
Tom is aware that it would have been easy for the Town Deal Board to seek views from the usual demographic groups, making assumptions about what younger generations wanted from the future of Newark. He is equally clear that this would not have surfaced the diversity of ideas generated by the Future Newark competition.
For his part, Jay is open to staying in Newark so long as “it stays safe, and has an eco-friendly approach to things.” Others, like Jay’s fellow competition winner, Harrison, remain concerned about a lack of job opportunities in the area. “I'm not saying they're bad jobs or anything but there's just more opportunities elsewhere,” he says, suggesting Tom and his Town Deal Board colleagues are on the right track in focusing on improving pathways to work.
What all competition winners and runners-up agree on is that children should be involved more in shaping the future of their Towns because, in the words of Katherine from Highfields School, “children have brilliant ideas.” but according to another winner, Elliot, from Newark Academy, they “don't always get listened to.”
By listening to young people's ideas, nurturing their ambitions, and matching those ambitions with the right access to skills, training and employment in the Town, Tom and the Town Deal Board aim to harness the creativity and passion of Newark’s young people to help shape a future that delivers on their ambitions.
This story was written from conversations with Tom Cartledge, Co-Chair of Newark Town Deal Board and CEO of Handley House; Jay Charles, Newark Academy; Elliott Rapley-Patrick, Barnby Road Academy; Harrison Fletcher, Newark Academy and Katherine Forgione, Highfields School.
Newark is one of 101 places invited by the Government to develop Town Deal proposals to deliver long-term economic recovery, clean growth, jobs and prosperity as part of the £3.6 billion Towns Fund. Newark submitted a successful Town Investment Plan and secured a Town Deal of up to £25 million in March 2021. Newark is currently developing business cases to take forward their Town Deal proposals.