This project which is now funded by Barrow Cadbury and is run jointly with the Women's Design Service and The Haven was initially funded from a grant from Wolverhampton Network Consortium (WNC) and was carried forward with support from the BME Network, HOPE (the older people's network) and the Children and Young Peoples' Network.
The project resulted in a workshop on women and design being held on 20th May at Timken Training where a number of presenters gave information about their work and answered questions from the group.
The presenters were:
Jeremy Brown from Creative Partnerships who described his work with young people from Deansfield School on a regeneration project in the East Park area.
Kerry Bolister, the Council's senior Neighbourhood Renewal Officer Nicola Bargary who is a senior regeneration officer with Wolverhampton Council who is currently seconded to the Building Schools for the Future progamme.
They spoke as women in senior regeneration posts in the City and outlined a number of exciting regeneration projects currently planned or underway.
A woman planning officer with Wolverhampton Council and Cllr Judith Rowley who is currently the shadow chair of Wolverhampton Planning Commmittee. They spoke as women who have been involved in taking planning decisions.
The morning ended with a site visit to the Cross St South Development in Blakenhall and a speaker from Bromford who was involved in this project explained the innovative nature of the development including the provision of cheap, energy efficient heating.
22 women attended the event and feedback was generally very positive.
This has been followed up with the establishment of a Women's Design Group in Wolverhampton and anyone interested should contact WOW. The group are currently drawing up a programme of meetings and site visits and on May 27th will be looking at plans for the Bilston area and taking a site visit around Bilston.
Earlier meetings of the Women's Design Group included hearing about Planning On line and the Black Country Core Strategy as well as a presentation by West Midlands Planning Aid.