No-Man's Land For Women In Housebuilding

The Vanessa Feltz Show exposes what it's like for women taking on the traditionally man's world of construction.

When the Vanessa Feltz Show wanted to show on BBC TV what it's like for women taking on the traditionally man's world of construction, Gourgette Bouza of Loughton-based Higgins PLC in Essex explained on 5 August from her personal experience on the £110 million regeneration site of the Silwood housing estate in south-east London.

Presenter Vanessa Feltz was seen putting the questions to 54-year-old general "foreman" Georgette in front of the BBC film crew on the Silwood Estate, which spans the two London boroughs of Lewisham and Southwark.

And when Vanessa asked 17-year-old Jessica Thong about wanting to train in carpentry and joinery, Chris Parle of Higgins Construction was so impressed, he offered her an apprenticeship-based job live in front of the TV cameras.

The Silwood Estate is one of 30 that Higgins is currently regenerating in partnership with local authorities and what are known as registered social landlords, such as housing associations, in support of the Government's campaign to fill housing shortages and create better standards of living in affordable homes.

Women from all backgrounds are actively encouraged on every Higgins site to take advantage of special employment and training initiatives.

They even support childcare services for mothers wanting to begin training for work in the industry.

After leaving nursing in London in the 1980s, Georgette Bouza and her Spanish husband set up a pig farm on the wild Pyrenean mountains of Galicia, in north-west Spain.

The hurricane winds of 1986 shattered their plans there, destroying everything they had.

So they returned to London where she became interested in building work.

She trained first as a plumber, then in painting and decorating before managing a community self-build scheme in Bromley.

Subsequent supervision work for the Women in Manual Trades organisation led to her first job at Higgins on another estate in Lewisham and her construction career took off from there.

The numbers of women working in construction are low, representing only one per cent of its workforce according to the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB).

A special training facility developed with the CSV organisation is in its first year on the Silwood Estate to provide even more work opportunities for unemployed local women and men at the highest risk of complete alienation from the jobs market.

The Silwood Estate regeneration project is funded by Lewisham Council, Southwark Council, the London Development Agency, London and Quadrant Housing Trust, Tower Homes and the Presentation Group to develop 554 new homes, refurbish a further 119 and provide new community facilities, as well as supporting a range of social, educational, economic and environmental projects.

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