Prescott announces plans for regeneration Academy in Leeds

11 Feb 2005

John Prescott has announced that the proposed national Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC) will be located in Leeds. The bid to host the new academy was put forward by Yorkshire Forward on behalf of the Northern Way.
The academy is the child of a task force established by the ODPM in response to findings in the Egan Review of Skills for Sustainable Communities that was conducted last year.

ASC will be run by Chris Murray, who has been seconded from CABE for six months, and will be based at the Round Foundry in Leeds. According to Murray ASC will be a lean organisation with under a dozen staff and a high profile chair and board.
Talking about the new academy, Murray said the ASC would be using consultants, people with the greatest expertise in their field, in order to deliver some of the educational projects. ASC is unlikely to carry out its own research, but it may be responsible for signposting academic research by other organisations. ASC is concerned with creating the right ‘skills set’ among regeneration professionals and will be developing a diagnostic tool to help review skill levels and identify skill gaps.

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