Grosvenor

A rarity in rigger's boots but building on success

 

RACHEL Harwood and Ellie Wilsher are women in Paradise. The pair are the only two female construction workers transforming the city in the £920m Paradise Street project.


But when the site engineers don their hard hats, high-visibility jackets and steel toecapped boots they are just one of the lads - even if they are wearing mascara and earrings.

Despite being a rarity in the male-dominated construction industry and putting in a 48-hour week, Rachel and Ellie both love their jobs with Laing O'Rourke and would not swop them for a working life cooped up in an office or shop.

Rachel said: "We are a rarity but that doesn't bother me. When I walk into town in my rigger's boots people do look, but I don't mind.

"The lads just accept you and you get on with the job. I get lots of job satisfaction because I can see buildings going up that I have worked on."

Ellie is a trainee site engineer and responsible for all the concrete delivered to the project.

She said: "You do occasionally get older men saying this is no job for a woman, but you just laugh it off. You have to have a thick skin to do this job! I really enjoy it and more girls should definitely go into jobs like this."

There are female architects, health and safety officers and surveyors working on the Paradise Street project and Rachel, 28, and Ellie, 22, would like to see more women taking up construction jobs.

And the next generation of female architects, surveyors and builders is waiting in the wings at Archbishop Blanch high school.

Pupils won a competition organised by Liverpool Compact Education Business Partnership to highlight careers for females in the construction industry as part of National Construction Week.

The team, and groups from five other schools, were asked to build a showhome from a kit of mini-bricks, mortar, doors, window frames and roof tiles.

Emma Colebourn, Laura Walters, Nastaran Sargazi, Syafiera Wan Mohamed Rosidi and Holly Vicary from Archbishop Blanch, came out on top and Grosvenor and Laing O'Rourke hosted a presentation for the winners.

Laura, 15, of Childwall, said: "I would like to go into architecture and design modern buildings. There aren't enough women doing that job."

Average pay for jobs in the construction industry:

Architect: . . . . . . . up to £45,000 Quantity surveyor: . . . . . . £30,000 - £35,000 Electrical engineer: . . . . . £28,000 - £32,000 Bricklayer: . . ....... .up to £8.50 an hour Scaffolder: . . . . . . .up to £7.50 an hour

The Paradise Street project is the biggest retail development in Europe.

Developer Grosvenor, owned by the Duke of Westminster, is providing Liverpool with a new shopping quarter, complete with new John Lewis and Debenhams department stores.

A multi-screen cinema, hotels, flats and revamped Chavasse Park are also part of the development.

The first section of the Paradise Project, a new bus station and multi-storey car park, should be ready to open later this year.

For more information about the construction industry contact The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) on 01485 577577 or log onto their website at www.citb.org.uk Or contact the Construction Apprenticeship scheme (CAS) on 01923 402155, visit their web-site at www.ecitb.org.uk, or email them at nasec@ecitb.org.uk

 

By Mary Murtagh, Liverpool Echo