Supermarkets Asda and Tesco have added their support to a report calling for more people to be given job opportunities based around new housing projects.
The Report from the All Party Urban Development Group suggests “skills and earnings should be reinvested in communities” when these projects are built and when they are completed as well.
Chairman of the development group Clive Betts MP said: “Regeneration isn’t just about bricks and mortar; it’s about the legacy and economic certainty of the decades to come.
“Local people bear the costs of new development, so it’s only fair that they should benefit the most. We just need the government to support this and for councils to want to make it work by showing real innovation in how they plan.”
In its written submission to the paper, Tesco said: “Regeneration is not just about the built environment. It is also about the legacy you leave there by stimulating economic development and providing long term career opportunities.
“Over the past ten years we have brought thousands of long-term unemployed people into careers with Tesco through our Regeneration Partnership schemes.”
Asda said the local community should be represented on the management boards of large-scale redevelopments, as they are “linked with communities”.
Both retailers have stated already this year that they plan to create new jobs – Tesco 10,000 and Asda 7,000.
