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Cross River Partnership welcomes new recruits

26th October 2015 / Posted by CRP Team

CRP is thrilled that we have three new starters who will deliver our Recruit London project: Benjamin Laryea, Thomas Wagaine and Sylvia Kankasa.

The team are pictured, from left to right: Isabelle Benard – NWEC Workplace Coordinator, Thomas Wagaine – Crown Estate Workplace Coordinator, Nikoletta Gjergji – Project Support Assistant, Sylvia Kankasa – Specialist Workplace Coordinator, Claire James (CJ) – Recruit London Delivery Manager, Benjamin Laryea – Capco Workplace Coordinator

Benjamin Laryea, is a Workplace Coordinator who will be based at Capital & Counties CG Ltd (Capco), our newest Recruit London project partner. Ben previously worked for Communities into Training and Employment (CITE) as their Pre-Employment & Training coordinator, responsible for the delivery across London, predominantly working in the fields of Health & Social Care and Customer Service. Contact him on blaryea@westminster.gov.uk.

Sylvia Kankasa is our new Specialist Workplace Coordinator, supporting Westminster residents with disabilities, health conditions or barriers to work. She will work closely with businesses to encouarge them to offer tailored employment opportunities to meet residents’ needs. She has previously worked for London CRC Probation as an Employment Consultant, and at the charitable organisation Drive Forward Foundation as Operations Manager. Contact her at skankasa@westminster.gov.uk.

Thomas Wagaine is our new Workplace Coordinator based at The Crown Estate, and will support residents into work with their occupier businesses. He has previously worked at Olmec providing employment support to Metropolitan Housing residents, and at West Herts College as a Student Support Advisor. Contact him at twagaine@westminster.gov.uk.

Funding success for Recruit London

23rd October 2015 / Posted by CRP Team

Our Recruit London initiative has been successful in securing Flexible Support Funding from the South London Jobcentre Plus. This will enable us to support Lambeth residents into retail vacancies in the West End and Covent Garden.

Cross River Partnership has successfully delivered three previous Flexible Support Fund projects, helping over 150 unemployed Lambeth residents into work.  Through this phase, we will support 140 candidates including those who are long term unemployed, have completed the Work Programme without moving into a job, and those from Black and Minority Ethnic groups, and 70 will move into work.

Candidates will receive our expert training and support which is tailored to the live vacancies we have available (including interview skills, understanding the employer, body language, sales techniques and confidence). They will be matched to our live opportunities and put forward directly to employers for interviews or work trials. Our support continues once a job offer is made, to help the candidate make the transition into work.

Our work has started immediately, with vacancies at Toy Store and New Look being offered.

Contact CJ for more information at cjames@westminster.gov.uk

Supporting Local Talent Event – 5:30pm 19th November

23rd October 2015 / Posted by CRP Team

We are delighted to invite you to our upcoming event, Supporting Local Talent, to learn how to diversify and strengthen your workforce.

  • Date: Thursday 19th November 2015
  • Time: 5:30pm to 7:00pm – refreshments available
  • Place: The Mayor’s Parlour, Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, London SW1E 6QP

There is a large pool of talented candidates within Westminster who have disabilities or health conditions, and often employers are missing out on recruiting the best person for their vacancies because they are not accessing them.

Come along to find out how we can help you recruit local residents to make a positive impact on their lives and your business. You will also learn about how you can attract a wider pool of candidates, and access grants to help you make reasonable adjustments for candidates if needed.

This is also a fantastic opportunity to meet other Westminster businesses and hear from Councillor Rachael Robathan, Cabinet Member for Adults and Public Health, and Councillor Iain Bott, Deputy Cabinet Member for Adults and Public Health.

RSVP to Sylvia Kankasa, Specialist Workplace Coordinator, Cross River Partnership at skankasa@westminster.gov.uk.

FREVUE presented at the EXPO Milan

21st October 2015 / Posted by CRP Team

The FREVUE six-monthly partner meeting was held in Milan on 1-2 October 2015 and concluded with a press conference at the EXPO 2015 “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”.

The newly appointed project co-ordinator, Tanja Dalle-Muenchmeyer (Cross River Partnership) and representatives from Milan, Madrid and Stockholm introduced the project and some of its freight electric vehicle demonstrations to the journalists.

European cities continue to grow, and traffic generated by the logistics sector grows too, causing pollution and noise, explained Tanja Dalle-Muenchmeyer. The FREVUE project aims to show that  combined with the implementation of urban consolidation centres, clean and quiet electric freight vehicles are viable alternatives to conventional diesel ones.

Electric and smart logistics in Madrid and Stockholm

“Madrid is a lively city, and delivery of food products to all of its bars, restaurants and stores has become a complicated activity,” explained Sergio Balaguer. “With the FREVUE project, we have created a large logistical center and we have involved the main actors in food delivery, in particular the food group Calidad Pascual and logistics companies SEUR and TNT.”

“Stockholm has a complicated layout, because it covers fourteen islands linked by fifty-four bridges, and these require a great effort, logistically speaking,” Elin Skogens continued. “With FREVUE, in addition to the consolidation center and the electric vehicles, we have reduced delivery traffic thanks to inverse logistics, meaning the recovery of returns related to the product deliveries.”

Pharmaceutical deliveries with electric vehicles in Milan

“Because of the nature of their activities, pharmacies require many daily deliveries, up to five per day,” explained Maria Berrini. “In the scope of FREVUE we are concentrating for now on downtown pharmacies around Area C (Milan’s low emission zone). We have achieved collaboration with all the players involved, meaning associations in the category of pharmaceutical couriers Confcommercio and Eurodifarm, who have made their warehouses available”.

To read the article on the EXPO 2015 website, please see here.

The FREVUE (Freight Electric Vehicles in Urban Europe) project is an urban e-mobility project supported by the European Commission. For questions or comments, please contact the FREVUE Co-ordinator, Tanja Dalle-Muenchmeyer, on tdmuenchmeyer@westminster.co.uk

http://frevue.eu/

Event on 8th October 15: Sustainable Procurement strategies, policies and practices

24th September 2015 / Posted by CRP Team

Fit for the Future Network in partnership with Clean Air Better Business invites you to an event on: Sustainable Procurement strategies, policies and practices. Click here to register for the event.

  • Date: Thursday 8th October, 10am – 2.30pm
  • Venue: Morden Hall, Morden Hall Rd, Morden, London SM4 5JD

This event will explore key issues for professionals involved in developing and implementing sustainable procurement policies and strategies and enable attendees to share experiences or best practice with others.

By the end of the event attendees will:

  1. Understand the importance of demand management when implementing a sustainable procurement strategy, with Michael Burke, WWF
  2. Understand recent changes to the green legislation and how it impacts a sustainable procurement strategy, with Martin Garry, The Co-operative Group
  3. Have considered the whole life cycle of a procurement process, specifically with regards to the air quality impact of logistics and transport
  4. Discussed best practice for specific category management, with facilitated discussions on transport, IT, timber, print and catering. With Gavin Beat, Canal and River Trust, National Trust, Local Authorities and others.
  5. Gained insight into the procurement strategies, policies and practices within a range of sectors, including public, private and non-profit.

The event is for:

Members of Fit for the Future Network from across the UK and partners from CRP’s Clean Air Better Business programme. Specifically, sustainability professionals, procurement managers or officers and anyone involved in the supplier chain process should attend.

Click here to register for the event.

CABB Twitter 100th Follower

24th September 2015 / Posted by CRP Team

Hooray! We have reached 100 followers on the Clean Air Better Business twitter page – @CRP_CABB.

As part of the communications strategy we set up the account to raise the profile of the programme externally and between project partners with the aim of sharing knowledge and promoting best practice.

We believe that ‘Clean air is better for business’ and will continue to provide a stream of news and updates in a digestible format to raise and maintain awareness and instil confidence amongst partners of the benefits of air quality initiatives.

If you haven’t already, make sure to follow us.

OLEV Go Ultra Low City Scheme

24th September 2015 / Posted by CRP Team

Almost 100 delegates representing commercial, business vehicle, freight, public sector and private car fleets from London attended the CRP-organised business engagement event held in the London Living Rooms, City Hall on 3rd September 2015. This event was in support of London’s application for the Office of Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) Go Ultra Low City Scheme led by the Greater London Authority and Transport for London.

Cross River Partnership’s role within this event was to secure attendance by key industry players with the aim of gaining their endorsement of London’s application to OLEV. CRP facilitated the event and is providing feedback from industry to enhance the bid.

London’s vision is to become an ultra low emission vehicle capital as set out within the Ultra Low Emission Vehicle Delivery Plan,. The bid is for £20 million in funding from OLEV to make this vision a reality.

The key themes and asks from business at the event included:

  • the suggestion that GLA/TfL enter into a consortium with a manufacturer and end user to develop solutions;
  • the private sector’s appetite for more trials, demonstrations, information/data about best practice and case studies;
  • general support for the idea of charging hubs and strong desire for rapid and inductive charging;
  • the desire for incentives, including financial/loan assistance;
  • app based technology to indicate where charging infrastructure is located, with assurances as to its serviceability; and
  • perhaps most importantly, willingness to see strategic bodies flex their regulatory muscles in various ways to enable business/industry to do what it must!

What is next? – The bid builds on the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) policies with wider proposals to bring about a transformation for commercial fleets, business vehicles and private car fleets in London.

The deadline for submission of the bid is 2nd October 2015.

CRP will continue to work closely with Transport for London, the Greater London Authority and London Councils to help deliver London’s ultra low emission future.

Mayor’s Air Quality Fund 2 bid submitted

24th September 2015 / Posted by CRP Team

Great news! Cross River Partnership has submitted an application on behalf of the central London sub-region for the Mayor’s Air Quality Fund round 2.

Cross River Partnership’s application incorporated proposals from 12 BID and 4 local authority partners, which is a positive indication of how enthusiastic our partners are in addressing the poor air quality issue in London.

This new application is to expand on the interventions already being implemented by CRP and its partners with the Mayor’s Air Quality funded – Clean Air Better Business (CABB) programme. Achievements to date include:

Mainstreaming Air Quality issues within Business Improvement District agendas

  • 500 Air Quality toolkits designed to provide businesses with example interventions of what they can do to tackle the air quality problem
  • A business-facing air quality widget (please see an example here)
  • Delivery and Servicing Plans being piloted by up to 7 large businesses across central London
  • Encouraging the uptake of ultra low emission vehicles through a business engagement event for London’s ‘Go Ultra Low City Scheme’ funding application
  • Zero and Low emission directory of suppliers
  • Supporting active travel and exposure mitigation through re-routing travel (Wellbeing walk and Pool bike scheme)
  • Communication campaign and promoting CABB activity via social media e.g. Twitter
  • Raising awareness amongst Private hire vehicle operators on air quality and offering ‘drive-style’ training.

The MAQF2 provides an excellent opportunity for CRP and partners to reap maximum rewards from the development time already put in for CABB and it also provides the chance to offer even more innovation and services, to business and residents.

Fingers crossed!.

CRP Funding Success for Freight

24th September 2015 / Posted by CRP Team

CRP has been awarded over €90,000 to develop innovative approaches to improvements in city logistics across a number of European cities over the next 6 months, under our new project “Freight TAILS”. This funding will support the development of a larger bid (up to €750,000) for the project to be implemented 2016 – 2018.

This funding is awarded under the URBACT III programme.

CRP’s Freight TAILS was one of only 21 applications to be successful at Phase 1 from a total of 99 submissions. We received the following excellent feedback from the funders:

“The URBACT Freight TAILS project addresses the challenges posed by rapidly increasing freight movements, within the context of all urban logistics. It aims at the development of tailored freight management policies using the URBACT Integrated Action Planning methodology. The External Assessment Panel considers this is an excellent proposal, presenting very high quality content on all dimensions to be assessed and very high potential for successful implementation.” URBACT Secretariat

“Freight TAILS” Phase 1 is led by CRP in partnership with Maastricht (The Netherlands), Parma (Italy), Plascencia (Spain), and Suceava (Romania). Over the course of the next 6 months we will expand the partnership to total up to 12 European cities for the full Phase 2 application.

For more information on Freight TAILS please contact Charlotte Knell, CRP Project Manager, cknell1@westminster.gov.uk.

For more information on the other successful URBACT III projects, please go to http://urbact.eu/new-action-planning-networks-more-information-available.

Onwards and Upwards!

24th September 2015 / Posted by CRP Team

CRP’s Ananth Murthy has successfully secured a permanent post following a competitive interview process, with Cross River Partnership’s accountable body Westminster City Council, as a Business and Enterprise Programme Manager. This appointment comes after Ananth has worked on the successful ERDF- funded Supply Cross River 2 project over the past two years, which completed its delivery in March 2015. The draft evaluation of the project shows that it has massively overachieved on many of the formal outcomes and made a real difference to the SMEs in the central London sub-region.  Well done Ananth and all of CRP’s SXR2 project partners!

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