St. Austell and Newquay

Objectives

To create a strategic partnership that will develop a number of learning towns in the borough of Restormel.

The project manager is the Principal of St Austell College and he has played a key role in bringing together local agencies and interests to form the Restormel Action Group. The group includes the Chief Executive of Restormel Borough Council, business representatives and representatives of local town forums in Newquay and St. Austell. The strategy being developed is closely linked to the Objective 1 programme being developed in Cornwall in readiness for Objective 1 status.

Outcomes

The consultant to this project reports that the Learning Town concept has propelled the development of an integrated approach to learning and regeneration. The partnership has demonstrated a pattern for attention to negotiating and sharing values and also demonstrated the key roles individuals need to take in such a process.

Involvement in the pathfinder project has been useful in providing links with similar initiatives elsewhere. These have included the Objective 1 area in South Yorkshire and other pathfinder projects in Bristol and Kirklees.

A central feature of the work in Cornwall is a focus on the learning needs of small and medium enterprises and the consultant believes that the needs of such enterprises should form a focus for follow up Learning City activity.

So far as the use of the toolkit is concerned this initiative found it a useful basis for partnership development although local experience might suggest some revisions. The interim report suggested that the project manager had found it over sophisticated. The performance strand of the toolkit has been used as the basis for a checklist for use with partners' progress in developing local partnership.