Both in my role here at Stockport Council in the Regeneration Department and previous roles in Willow Park Housing Trust as a Community Regeneration Manager and in Manchester Foyer where as Operations Manager, I have led on intergrated and sustainable urban development and regeneration projects that attracted European Regional Development Funds for 2 employment schemes European Social Funding for training and development and New Deal funding from central government to support homeless young people into Employment. I have both experience of developing and managing economic and employment growth projects and providing advice on complex issues of securing and/or managing external funding. I will detail first my economic and employment experience and then the funding advice experience. First in Manchester I was closely involved with both Regeneration Partnerships there and led on economy, skills and employment both at the Foyer and at Willow Park. At Manchester Foyer we developed unique and innovative projects targeting employment and skills for homeless young people to increase their employability and keep them away from rough sleeping. This was in partnership with the local regeneration partnership; local business leaders and Manchester TEC. In Willow Park I developed 2 new Intermediate Labour Markets. The first was targeting young unemployed adults who were trained and gained experience in Window Fitting as part of the wrap around regeneration of the area

I have developed an keen understanding whilst at Stockport and developed exchange and cooperation projects so that now a first choice partner for European Partners and our role is more involved with the partnership development and project development as well as leading on work packages for the partnership. This is now to the extent where Stockport are leading a submission as a Lead Partner in 2015 for the first time ever at the head of a large and growing Consortium for the new Erasmus+ programme around training and skills. Within Europe I have particular create a role of specialist that has led to Stockport being able to secure funding from Europe and has grown from an occasional EU project to gaining a national reputation as a municipality that engages in EU programmes and in the last 2 years has been seen as a serious player in Europe with a strong and growing reputation as European expert in the field of Active Ageing. For Stockport this is a new position and one which we can be very proud of. Subregionally we are seen as leaders around European Cooperation Funding and with securing over €900,000 of funding have demonstrated that Cooperation Funding is worth investing time and resources. This role has grown since undertaken work directly for the EU Commission since 2013 as an external expert in this area. I have led on Interreg projects (5) 7th Framework and Horizon 2020 projects as well as AAL and CIP programmes.