Emily Cockle, Community Regeneration Manager, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council
Achieving Inclusive Growth CPD workshop
Emily Cockle is Community Regeneration Manager at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, where she leads neighbourhood regeneration projects in the borough. Previously Regeneration and Development Manager at Hampshire County Council, Emily started her new role in January 2018 and attended the IED’s Achieving Inclusive Growth CPD workshop in May 2018.
As well as supporting her formal CPD learning, Emily outlined three key reasons for signing up. “I wanted to explore ideas with other organisations and networking because the workshop seemed relevant to my new role; to inform the development of my Regeneration Strategy in terms of ensuring that inclusive growth supports connections between communities, partners, economic development and regeneration and with potential commercial investment and social outcomes; and to explore best practice in linking existing communities with major new developments on their doorstep,” she explained.
Emily described the workshop as “professional, organised, relaxed and informative” and enthused that it was “one of the best I have attended”. She continued: “Bev Hurley (IED Chair, who led the event) was excellent and there was a good response from the group in terms of participation and thoughtful questions. All my learning objectives were met. I particularly valued references to exemplar practice elsewhere in the UK and thinking behind leading areas in this field, for instance in Scotland. I would absolutely recommend these workshops to other economic development practitioners.”
A keen IED blogger (producing articles for the Institute’s member blog), Emily added that the insight gained at the workshop was already impacting positively on the Council. “We promote community inclusivity for regeneration schemes, but the missing link – with regeneration being a new function in the organisation – is with the wider property industry and other partners in the public and private sectors to promote opportunities for regeneration and investment,” she explained. “I recently facilitated a regeneration partnership event to promote our regeneration ambitions more widely, with a workshop with 30 different organisations in the room. We are now developing our Regeneration Strategy from a Community Regeneration Strategy to a Partnership Regeneration Strategy, to reflect our thinking in terms of the support we need to deliver our regeneration objectives for Basingstoke and Deane.”