Compass brings UK place-making expert to Hunter

Compass brings UK place-making expert to Hunter

A Hunter based organisation has brought a respected UK academic and place-making expert to the region to help it to become a leader in regenerating marginalised communities.

Australia’s largest community housing provider, Compass Housing Services, has appointed Professor David Adamson OBE to its team.

An Emeritus Professor with the University of South Wales, David is internationally recognised for his expertise in economic and community regeneration. His community regeneration approach, the ‘Deep Place Method’, is being successfully implemented in Wales. ‘Deep Place’ develops a comprehensive profile for each community and maps new economic activities that can create training and employment opportunities for the long-term unemployed.

Compass Housing’s Group Managing Director, Greg Budworth, said David will lead Compass’ development of the approach in the Hunter region and beyond. He said David’s experience working in some of the UK’s poorest communities would be a tremendous asset to Compass’ community development activities.

“As well as providing affordable homes, Compass is passionate about helping build sustainable communities,” Greg said.

“That’s not only great news for our tenants but the whole community, business and individuals, as well.”

Professor Adamson said that he was excited about the opportunity to work with Compass.

“Compass is delivering best practice approaches that have been proven to work in the United Kingdom,” David said.

“These programs are more than simply feel-good activities as they actually enhance the quality of our tenant’s lives, help create communities, and assist people to enter the labour market.”

As CEO of the Centre for Regeneration Excellence Wales (CREW) in the UK, David developed a very specific approach to the economic regeneration of some of the most disadvantaged communities in Europe where child poverty rates were 33 per cent and above. His ‘Deep Place’ method integrates social and economic regeneration objectives with a unified approach to economic and community renewal. It has been developed over 25 years of practice working with community members and community organisations as well as government, third sector and private sector partners.

Home in Place

Home in Place is a Tier 1 community housing provider and registered Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) provider. It currently manages more than 7600 social, affordable and disability housing homes in NSW, Queensland and New Zealand.

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