We worked with Climate FORTH and TCV Scotland to deliver an environmental skills session to contractors.
Categories
Blog, Projects, Urban Greenspace
Date
12 March 2025
As part of our project at Rannoch Park, we recently ran a free training session in partnership with The National Lottery Heritage Funded Climate FORTH project, and TCV Scotland to upskill contractors in nature-based solutions.
Scotland needs a skilled and experienced supply chain to transition to net zero and a wellbeing economy. However, research undertaken by NatureScot found that our workforce currently doesn’t have the relevant training or expertise to undertake habitat management or climate resilience interventions.
To address this skills gap, Climate FORTH is running a free practical skills training programme, and our session at Rannoch Park was the second in the series. The programme is aimed at contractors, land managers, and groundworks operatives to increase numbers who are skilled, confident and experienced in habitat management with climate adaptation and mitigation in mind. This will also contribute to a supply chain of experienced operatives will the skills to undertake climate resilience works in the future.
Rannoch Park is a large, open park in Grangemouth with amenity grass, sports pitches and play facilities. It is prone to flooding in the winter and overheating in the summer. The park was identified as a suitable greenspace for improvement works and our project focuses on reducing the impacts of heavy rainfall and supporting climate adaptation – as well as making it a more welcoming and interesting space for the local community.
Green Action Trust staff explained the process of delivering our project at Rannoch Park to training participants
Participants learned about the Rannoch Park project and heard from staff from Green Action Trust and Landscapes and Contracts Ltd, the contractor delivering works onsite. Often, teaching around climate resilience focusses on rural landscapes. This session was a great opportunity to look through an urban lens and consider the different challenges that urban greenspaces can present. For example, utilities and pipelines, roads and motorways, and access issues for maintenance teams.
The session also covered:
The process for delivery of climate adaptation and environmental projects
The challenges of delivering environmental projects in urban areas
Considerations for sites with heritage assets.
The skills or qualifications needed to deliver this type of work in the future
How to apply climate resilience skills in daily tasks
Urban sites present different challenges and considerations to rural greenspaces
Participants heard from contractors about the skills needed to deliver climate resilient ground work
Participants included contractors already delivering environmental groundwork projects and those looking to move further into the environmental sector. Feedback from the session was overwhelmingly positive, with all participants stating that they would recommend it to others.
Hear what participants had to say:
As someone who is mostly familiar with the ‘wilder’ countryside, I found the session at Rannoch Park very insightful. I learned a lot about the challenges and opportunities of developing an urban greenspace, and appreciated that we got to ask questions of the planners and contractors themselves. Although the site was still being developed, it was wonderful to see members of the community already using the infrastructure that was in place and hear about the work of the Green Action Trust in working with them during the project. All the speakers were lovely and I really enjoyed the session!
Chloe Harkness
It was very insightful hearing from each of the different organisations involved in delivering this project and about the many unexpected and diverse considerations that may be discovered when researching your site and creating plans to provide climate resilient habitats.
