Please click here to view a film about the visit
We want to make sure that our vision for Langarth fits with what these future residents would like to see included in the Garden Village. We also want to highlight the opportunities for future employment at Langarth, both in terms of helping to actually construct the new houses and other buildings, and working within the community in shops, offices, cafes, pharmacies, etc.
The first part of the programme saw the young people visiting Governs, the iron age hill fort which has now been protected for future public use as a result of Cornwall Council’s involvement in the Garden Village project. With archaeologist Peter Herring on hand to provide information about the historic Round, the youngsters were encouraged to think about how the people would have lived and worked at the site more than 2,000 years ago.
The focus then moved to the new interim link road where the children became the first members of the public to walk down the road which will provide access to the new primary school and the first homes to be built during phase 1 of the development.
The site visit ended with a tour of the tree nursery which has been created to help grow the 55,000 new trees which will be planted at Garden Village during the life of the project. As part of their involvement with the scheme, all 61 pupils were invited to put their names on copper tags. These will be attached to the first trees planted at Governs.
The second part of the programme saw the pupils return to their classrooms where they worked with Alice Brown and Sarah Treliving from the Langarth project team to develop their ideas for the Garden Village site.
The pupils came up some fantastic ideas, including skate parks and play areas, a nature reserve, shops, cafes, a zoo, lots of trees and green spaces, and even a train station. Other ideas included a pet shop where lonely people could go to buy pets to keep them company; a multi faith space, leisure activities, including BMX tracks and virtual reality spaces; sweet shops (and dentists), as well as schools, hotels, swimming pools, and all kinds of houses. We were a little surprised by one group who suggested providing 18 different take away outlets but it was great to hear all their ideas and see their drawings about how Langarth could look in the future.
It was also great to have the opportunity to talk with them about how to create a new community, and get them thinking about how they could be part of constructing the homes they might then live in and their future work places.
There is currently a severe skills shortage in construction and we wanted to show the pupils the range of different roles and responsibilities available in the industry when they start to think about their future careers.
They came up with an impressive list of jobs in construction, including geologists, planners, architects and archaeologists, as well as crane drivers and delivery drivers and a whole range of other possible jobs .
