MPs call for planning contracts to prioritise local employment

Planning contracts for new developments should prioritise local employment and ensure that training and job opportunities are maximised around new projects, a new report by the All Party Urban Development Group has said.The cross party group of MPs and peers wants planners to use section 106 agreements with developers to ensure that locals benefit fully from regeneration.

According to the group this approach would enable skills and earnings to be reinvested in communities as the projects are built and then used afterwards. Hiring local people for construction work and developing people's skills to equip them to work in completed developments would reduce the skills gap and build up employment opportunities from within our towns.

The report, 'Building local jobs', says that councils, health trusts and other public sector agencies should lead by example and promote use of local labour on their own property development projects. Local planners should assess a planning application's potential to spark employment in a regeneration area and ensure employment commitments through their negotiations with the developer.

Over the last year construction has fallen dramatically.The Local Government Association has predicted that one in five construction workers could be made redundant by 2011.

The All Party Urban Development Group believes that protecting jobs through contracts agreed before building commences would have many long term benefits associated with protecting employment and removing the need to hire from abroad.

Clive Betts MP, chairman of the All Party Urban Development Group, said:

"It is crucial that during these difficult economic times, councils and businesses do everything they can to protect jobs for local people. The planning process provides a prime opportunity for councils to negotiate with private developers, thereby providing good training and job opportunities to local unemployed."