The award-winning construction company helping to transform Grimsby Town Centre is also working closely with the local community to leave a lasting positive impact on the area.
GMI Construction Group PLC is a national UK Contractor providing specialist design and build projects across the country.
The hugely ambitious £50-million project, commissioned by NELC, is re-imagining the town centre to provide a more sustainable, safe and welcoming environment for visitors and residents. With a new cinema, food and beverage outlets and state-of-the-art market, there will be an abundance of new amenities for the public to enjoy at Freshney Place.
As it works to deliver this project, GMI is also driving social value and outreach projects in the region, supporting, delivering and capturing employment and apprenticeship opportunities.
It is doing this by working closely with North East Lincolnshire Council to ensure support for NELC’s drive for jobs for local residents.
Throughout the build, the company has set itself targets including providing apprenticeships, hiring unemployed people, providing work experience opportunities, and hosting informative visits to the Freshney Place site from schools and colleges.
It has also supported a Parents’ Careers Evening at the Humber Royal Hotel, set up a Just Giving Page for fundraising for Grimsby Horizon Youth Zone, attended a Careers Progression event at Grimsby Institute, hosted a school visit by Littlecoates Primary School to see demolition machinery in operation, delivered a speed networking session as part of Careers Shift sessions run by NELC Adult Skills team, and met the team behind a jobs café which will be taking over a unit in the shopping centre to see where sub-contractors could potentially support with the fit out.
The most recent project involved students from Hibaldstow Academy, who visited Freshney Place to see the ongoing demolition works. Escorted around the site by GMI Project Manager Dave Fish, the students were taught about the importance of every job that goes into creating these developments, as well as being shown some of the equipment used on the project.
They heard how demolition work is now well underway, with units in The Bullring the latest to be knocked down, and construction work is expected to begin later this year. The scheme will secure the long-term future of Freshney Place and the 1,700 jobs it currently supports.
Brendan Tannam, GMI Responsible Business Partner, said: “We are involved in a wide range of social value projects like giving children a site tour, taking on T-Level students and supporting other local projects, such as the upcoming Horizon Youth Zone.
“It’s so important to offer these opportunities to local people when we’re right on the doorstep; it allows them to play a part in their own regeneration.”
North East Lincolnshire Council Leader, Cllr Philip Jackson, said. “We’re on a hugely ambitious journey, with significant investment of public funds across our towns and borough. We’re investing in one of the largest schemes this council has ever invested in.
“We are enormously grateful to GMI, and its Responsible Business Partner, Brendan Tannam, for the extra lengths the company is going to in order to support educational projects and job creation in Grimsby as it helps us to transform the town centre.
“Local job creation and the involvement of local people in this project not only brings benefits to the economy but also promotes pride and ownership in the scheme.
“The repurposing of the western end of Freshney Place is the largest regeneration scheme in the area and, along with the other projects around the town centre, it is set to transform the centre of Grimsby, attracting in more people for a range of exciting, new activities.
“As the demolition work continues, residents and visitors to Grimsby can see transformational change taking place.”
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