Jobs Silver Lining for Teenagers on Flood-Hit Estate

For Scott Doran, 17, and Liam Briggs, 19, the 2007 floods which affected the Winn Gardens estate where they live was devastating. However, the remarkable spirit of the two young men and others like them on the estate has led to a silver lining for their futures – a special apprenticeship with council housing repairs contractor Kier Sheffield leading to a career in construction.

 

Both of the lads live on the Winn Gardens estate which was flooded by the River Don almost a year ago this week. Scott’s home in the bottom part of the estate was flooded whilst Liam’s home in the upper part was affected by power cuts.

 

Scott, who was on the estate when the flooding occurred said; “I was really shocked by the mess, we didn’t really know what was happening and my mum was really stressed out and upset by the state of the family home”.

 

The youngsters and several of their friends from the estate got together to help people remove possessions to higher ground and looked out for the estate’s vulnerable residents.

 

Liam’s home, although not flooded, was affected by power cuts for several days after the floods and his family were forced to move in with relatives temporarily.

 

Staff from Sheffield Homes, the organisation responsible for managing council properties in Sheffield, and contractors working to repair damaged homes were impressed with the can-do attitude of the youngsters and wanted to offer places especially for young people from the estate on the sought after Kier Apprenticeship scheme.

 

Janet Sharpe, Assistant Director of Investment at Sheffield Homes, was involved in planning the flood repair programme. She said, “We felt it was important to ensure that as well as repairing the homes, we could deliver longer term benefits to people living on the estate. We were really impressed by the attitude of some of the younger residents and felt that this could be further developed by Kier’s excellent training programme.

 

“Young people often get a bad press but the apprentices from Winn Gardens and also the Burngreave apprentices that we took on at the same time, are doing well and are keen to learn. We ask all of our contractors to deliver training opportunities whether through the repair programme or the Decent Homes programme”.

 

Scott and Liam were two of three youngsters accepted onto the scheme in January 2007 and their first task was to help repair flood damaged homes on their own estate.

 

Scott said; “It was good to be able to help people we knew as well as learn construction skills. I even worked on my own home, which meant no mistakes as my mum wouldn’t be happy with that! I had applied for the apprenticeship scheme previously but wasn’t accepted at that time so I was really pleased to get the chance to apply again”.

 

Now that repairs to the estate are complete, the apprentices have moved on to work on Decent Homes properties in other parts of the city and also on general repair work.

 

Liam said; “After finishing on Winn Gardens I moved on to the adaptations team, which means making homes more accessible for elderly people. I really enjoy it, the residents are lovely and give us lots of tea and biscuits!

 

“Opportunities like this don’t come very often and even though the flooding was a really bad situation, it has led to this opportunity so that’s a good thing to come out of it. I would definitely recommend other young people to consider construction as a career.