Ensuring Jobs and Skills for the Future
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Forging new training opportunities and partnerships between businesses and our colleges in sectors like advanced manufacturing
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Bringing the jobs of the future to our region through our amazing £20bn STEP Fusion project
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Securing new incentives from Government to drive investment into our region
Working with education providers and business to make sure that there is a clear route into rewarding careers for young people in Mansfield, and that we are attracting new, well paid jobs. We've already made huge progress on funding, new partnerships and opportunities, and making this a massive national priority.
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Not only have our schools and colleges consistently improved in recent years, we've also brought together a new partnership between West Notts College and Nottingham Trent University to deliver Higher Education and degree level qualifications from the Mansfield campus, making us a University town! As well as delivering more of the skills people need to get on in life, this will help us to retain more of our home-grown talent and attract more businesses to set up shop in our part of the world.
Government have ensured that Mansfield and Ashfield are a priority area for school improvement, bringing new funding and support. We've secured millions of capital funding to help create new local opportunities, and nationally the Skills Bill will promote new career paths through technical and vocational education.
In addition to this, Vision West Notts College’s new Engineering Innovation Centre, based just off the A38, is now the home of the UK’s first Gene Haas Foundation Centre for Advanced Manufacturing. This is a globally renowned brand and a Formula One team too who've chosen our area to set up their UK operations, it's massive news!
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Nottinghamshire is set to be the powerhouse of the UK once again with the world-first STEP Fusion reactor being built in our county. This project will create thousands of well-paid and high-skilled jobs in clean energy from advanced manufacturing right the way through to the supply chain. With Mansfield being just down the road from this exciting development this will open up even more career opportunities for people, I'm proud to have helped secure the West Burton site as the UK's new home of Nuclear Fusion!
The site will also have a skills academy where similar to the UK's only other training site (at Culham), apprentices will earn and learn as they work with cutting edge, advanced technologies that will shape the future of our energy production and security.
Alongside some £600 million worth of contracts, it's quite possibly the single biggest investment in the history of Nottinghamshire and will create thousands of jobs in North Notts for Mansfield residents. These jobs won’t just be in nuclear energy, but across the wider supply chain, so it’s massive news for local people and will help deliver massive new training opportunities and high-skilled jobs in several other key sectors.
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Ahead of our devolution deal taking place, Government had already opened up doors for the East Midlands, allowing us to sit at the top table with other devolved authorities and benefit from things like the new ‘Investment Zones’.
There’ll be 12 of these across 8 parts of the country with specific tax and regulatory rules that will drive economic growth, and provide amazing new jobs in sectors that will be entirely new to our part of the world.
An East Midlands Investment Zone will potentially be worth £160 million to our region over 10 years, helping us to attract potentially billions in inward investment and new opportunities, particularly around science, technology and innovation. I’m looking forward to seizing the opportunities this will create, ensuring Mansfield residents benefit as much as possible!
