Rotherham Skills Street gets seal of approval

A group of officials from Rotherham Borough Council and the Civil Service enjoyed a visit to Gulliver’s Valley recently to find out more about the exciting Skills Street development.

Building work on South Yorkshire’s new innovative and immersive careers experience, Skills Street, is now well underway at the Rotherham theme park. Expected to open later this year, it will provide a new hands-on approach to developing, growing, and honing skills with the aim of inspiring and informing children, young people and adults about the world of work and careers.

The interactive centre, which will be a Centre of Excellence to learn about the world of work across all sectors and industries, is part of a winning bid secured by Rotherham Council through the Government’s Levelling Up Fund.

The visiting group included Rotherham Council chief executive, Sharon Kemp, along with representatives from the civil service including the Department for Education; Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities; Department for Business and Trade; and Department for Work and Pensions (Job Centre Plus).

Sharon Kemp, chief executive of Rotherham Council, said: “It was exciting to be able to see first-hand how the Skills Street development is coming to life, and I very much look forward to seeing the project continue to take shape. Having Skills Street in Rotherham will be so important in terms of raising aspirations of our children, young people and generations to come. The fun and practical approach makes the project unique as well as supporting the different employment and skills opportunities available locally.

“Partnership working has been essential to the success of this project so far and it was great to meet with the Gulliver’s team, alongside our civil service guests, to find out more about what Skills Street will deliver in the region once opened later this year.”

Julie Dalton, managing director of Gulliver’s Theme Park Resorts, said: “It was an honour to welcome Rotherham Council and the civil servant guests to Gulliver’s Valley so they could see for themselves the difference Skills Street is set to bring to Rotherham and the surrounding area. It’s been a collaboration right from the start and continuing to work with a wide variety of partners is crucial to its ongoing success. Skills Street is an engaging, innovative experience developed to inspire and inform children, young people, and adults from across the region and it was great to be able to showcase these elements at this event.”

The project is part of a £20m investment secured by Rotherham Council to help improve the leisure economy and skills in Rotherham. Other attractions also benefiting from the Leveling Up funding include Wentworth Woodhouse, Thrybergh Country Park, Rother Valley Country Park, Magna and Maltby Learning Trust.

At Skills Street children and young people will be able to walk into a bank and learn about the different roles and skills needed to work in the financial sector, or step into an engineering environment and have a go at designing or making a product. retail shops will enable customer service and money taking skills to be practiced and leisure and hospitality outlets will demonstrate the skills needed to succeed in these careers – all through hands on play, practice and performance.

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