III  PRESENTATIONS

ADDRESS BY HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES

Patron, Woodchester Mansion Trust

I am delighted to be here with the Minister today at Woodchester. As we’ve heard, since 1989 the Trust has knitted together community volunteering, tourism and education, unique on-site masonry training for students, public taster courses and the repair of a very special building whose future needs securing. It is marvellous to see how many people are deeply involved in this sector - so many of whom I know well. Three of us even acted together at Cambridge when we were undergraduates!

I am struck by the importance of the National Heritage Training Group’s research in England, then Scotland, Wales and Ireland as a real stepping-stone to address this issue. I knew there was a big problem, but had no idea of the need for 6,500 additional people to meet immediate demand in the next twelve months - i.e. specialist bricklayers, carpenters, slate and tile roofers; 400 joiners, leadworkers and stonemasons; 300 painters, decorators and thatchers. At least I’ve tried to do my bit by learning how to lay a hedge, but a few more of us will be needed!

So why do I mind so much? It has been a cause of great frustration to me over the past fifteen years to see so little regard being paid to apprenticeships in a range of genuine skills.

This is a waste both of assets and of potential skills - people can find worthwhile, satisfying and creative careers in these fields as the two young masons here today, Lucy Haugh and Payson Muller, can testify.

Over the nearly thirty years that The Prince’s Trust has been in existence, I have seen so many frustrated and alienated young people and I feel they have often been encouraged in the wrong direction. Those with technical skills are often pushed inappropriately down an academic path which can lead to so much psychological distress and missed opportunities for real fulfilment. Several years ago, I established the Arts & Kids Foundation to try to allow children access to the arts, which can so often kindle a lifelong passion. The same could be said of heritage skills.

The Prince’s Trust has been involved in setting up something called SkillCity, a large exhibition designed to enable young people to see the kind of skills that are on offer. Experience from the most recent SkillCity has shown growing interest in craft skills from young people, but the problem is that there are no funds to help people study them. There is clearly an urgent need to look at provision for people beyond the age of thirty who realize that their real talents lie in working with their hands, but who are outside the age limit for most charitable and educational grants. Could this be a fruitful course to explore for Government agencies and the Livery companies for instance?

It is all very well my minding about this issue of craft skills, but what have I done about it? My various organizations have been giving this whole area a lot of thought in recent years and come at the problem from a variety of angles. One important strand of work is the Craft Scholars’ Programme at my Foundation for the Built Environment. I am personally very excited about plans to expand the scheme which supports highly skilled craftspeople - very much in tune with the tenor of discussions here today. In another field, The Prince’s Trust has worked with the DfES to promote vocational job fairs like SkillCity and provided taster courses in a variety of craft skills in partnership with the private sector. Likewise, young people have been encouraged to sample construction work in themed programmes and, in conjunction with my Foundation for the Built Environment, are involved in a “Building for Real” project in Birmingham which is designed to bring out the latent craft skills in the participants.

Housebuilders such as Westbury Homes working on Duchy of Cornwall land at Poundbury have been actively encouraged to operate apprentice schemes and, elsewhere, the building company, Tullochs, have sponsored eight apprenticeships in traditional craft skills at the North Highland College in Thurso as part of my North Highland Initiative. Similar schemes are in operation on projects undertaken by my Phoenix Trust - an organization dedicated to acquiring, repairing and finding new uses for major historic buildings that have become redundant and can be brought back to life - for the benefit of the communities in which they are situated.

It is important to note here that there is a crying need for these skills not just for conservation, but also for new buildings. At the risk of stating the obvious, well-crafted houses offer a profoundly satisfying experience to those who live in them as well as work on them - we know from the Guinness Trust’s experience at Poundbury that the people who live in its affordable housing there really respond to the beauty of their surroundings with the result that the community as a whole becomes a more harmonious one.

An issue underlying all of this is sustainability. We have deeply fragmented our world and now need to re-integrate our approach to our environment. There is a profound need, I believe, to move toward architecture and buildings which reconnect the human and natural worlds with one another.

Traditional skills, methods of construction and materials are by their very nature sustainable. Tradition is not about style; it is about learning from the best of what has gone before. It is something infinitely varied, infinitely adaptable, infinitely changing. People’s needs, after all, have not changed so very much over the centuries.

I have great hope for the ambitious plans for a Skills Academy at Woodchester and want to thank Stephen Davis and his team for the fantastic job they have done to keep this issue alive. I am very proud to be the Patron of the Woodchester Mansion Trust and look forward to hearing what conclusions are reached during the afternoon’s discussions.