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Clear Futures is thrilled to welcome Paul Kelly as our new JV Board Member & Partnerships Director. With his wealth of experience in strategic partnerships and a background in advising local and central governments on place-shaping and regeneration, Paul will play a key role in strengthening our relationships with public sector clients across the North of England and Scotland. 

Charlotte Cordingley, CEO of Clear Futures, shared her excitement about Paul’s addition to the team:

“Paul’s understanding of the public sector landscape and his commitment to creating sustainable, impactful solutions make him a perfect fit for Clear Futures. We look forward to seeing the positive change he’ll help drive for our clients and their communities.” 

As Partnerships Director, Paul will support our public sector clients in achieving their strategic objectives. His work will focus on addressing a range of challenges including town centre regeneration, sustainable infrastructure, and strategic asset management. 

Reflecting on his new role, Paul Kelly stated:

“I am excited to join Clear Futures and to collaborate with our partners in the North of England and Scotland. Clear Futures’ flexible partnership model is uniquely positioned to provide the tailored support public sector clients need to make real progress in their communities.”

Clear Futures works with public sector organisations to deliver flexible, long-term partnerships that drive lasting change. By offering end-to-end support—from securing funding and advisory services to the actual implementation of projects—we help our partners make strides in meeting sustainability targets and overcoming complex built environment challenges. With a focus on regenerative, decarbonised, and community-focused solutions, we’re committed to creating value-driven partnerships that leave a lasting positive impact across the UK. 

Our people

The Clear Futures team brings together a diversity of experiences and complementary skills. We use our public sector and built environment expertise to help you turn short- and long-term development, infrastructure and services goals into meaningful action, and ambitions into reality.

Meet the team

Our partnerships

Working with Clear Futures in a long-term strategic partnership is a key way for public sector bodies to deliver sustainable buildings, infrastructure and services – effectively and faster. We’re a trusted partner for a dozen organisations, bringing the expertise needed to help achieve transformative, sustainable solutions to the challenges we all face.

See all of our partnerships

A recovery effort, spearheaded by Clear Futures, helped bring the Bolton Food & Drink Festival back from disaster after heavy winds and gusts of up to 60 mph threatened to cancel the event.

Traders had been setting up stalls all week for the country’s biggest foodie festival, which attracts more than 500,000 over four days at the end of August. Approximately 90% of the event is outside, with around 120 gazebos installed throughout the town centre.

Overnight and early on the morning of the first day of the event, on Friday August 23rd, Storm Lilian severely damaged or significantly displaced gazebos, tents and other events infrastructure causing Bolton Council to postpone the start of the festival.

An extensive clean-up operation was required before the site would be safe for public and traders. Clear Futures has been working with Bolton Council since 2019 as a strategic partner for buildings, infrastructure and services, and offered support to help make the festival happen.

Calling on delivery partners Robertson Facilities Management, Robertson Construction North West, Seddon and Leisure Guard, Clear Futures organised over 40 people to put right the damage to the festival site.

The team re-erected gazebos and signs, righted barriers, cleared debris and assisted traders to set up their stalls.

By the Friday evening, the clean-up and recovery operation was complete and the Festival went ahead as scheduled for the final three days.

Keith Edwards, Clear Futures’ Partnership Director said:

“Friday demonstrated the principles that drive Clear Futures, particularly ‘What’s important to you, is important to us’.  I’m incredibly proud of how our supply chain came together to show that principle in action.

“Bolton is one of the best examples of partnership working I have experienced. It takes a 360-degree attitude, time, and understanding to achieve this, and how we seamlessly came together on Friday and worked as one team showed what a true partnership is capable of.”

Sue Johnson, Chief Executive – Bolton Council said:

“I want to commend Clear Futures for adapting so quickly and going the extra mile when we needed it. The members of the supply chain worked incredibly hard so our visitors could enjoy a weekend full of live music, family entertainment and great food.

“We received so much positive feedback from the traders that were heavily impacted by Storm Lillian on how we turned the site around to be back operational on Saturday.

“Without your support we would have found this difficult to achieve. 

“Bolton is known for running successful events and this weekend, with the support of our staff and our partners, we proved beyond any doubt that this reputation is entirely justified.”

Jon Dyson, Director of Place – Bolton Council commented:

“The formal and informal partnerships that we have in place with Clear Futures are second to none and it was great to see so many people respond so quickly and with such enthusiasm. “You would never have known that Storm Lilian had caused so much damage.”

Find out more: our strategic partnership with Bolton Council

Clear Futures and Bolton Council have been working in partnership since 2019 to boost the town centre’s role as a key player in the Greater Manchester economy. This is coupled with a wider aspiration to attract more high-growth companies that will create the additional jobs, knowledge, skills and technology needed to compete in a global economy.

See what we’ve achieved

In anticipation of The Wellsprings innovation centre opening Autumn this year 2024 (watch this space), Business Bolton are rolling out targeted and tailored business support programmes designed to help Bolton entrepreneurs start, grow, and innovate in their businesses.

Offerings Include:

• 1:1 mentoring sessions
• Group events and activities
  

With expert guidance from The Wellsprings team, you’ll gain the tools, support, and community connections necessary to achieve your business goals.
To help you build a supportive entrepreneurial community and connect with peers and experts locally and nationally.

Specifically crafted to address the unique challenges faced by Bolton businesses, the programme leverages Oxford Innovation Space’s national network of business growth specialists and utilizes proven tools and techniques to empower your business.

These events are free to attend, but spaces are limited, so be sure to register early!

Creating a town centre innovation hub in Bolton

Clear Futures is breathing fresh life into a large vacant and disused 1980s Bolton town centre building –  converting the seven-storey structure into a new and valuable mixed-use environment, offering retail, commercial and event space in the heart of Bolton Town Centre, for our partner Bolton Council.

Read case study

Clear Futures is working with Girls Out Loud in Liverpool which is a social enterprise to deliver ‘The Big Sister mentoring programme’ over a 12-month period, running from 2024 to 2025. The programme provides life-changing mentoring support, focusing on themes such as personal identity, role models, career advice, improving confidence self-esteem self-respect and emotional resilience during their challenging teenage years.

Two mentors from Clear Futures strategic partners Robertson and AECOM, have volunteered to support The Big Sister Programme due to start in July 24 with girls from St Julies Catholic School in the city.

Clear Futures is committed to driving long-term social change through the work all its strategic partnerships and the aims of Girls Out Loud align perfectly with this ethos. Having someone to talk to and guide them through this frame-breaking time when their identity is taking shape, can make a huge difference to their lives in the long term.

Clear Futures Supply Chain Partner, Seddon Construction, attended the ‘Role Model Relay’ event in January 2024, which catered for up to 120 girls from St Julie’s Catholic High School in Liverpool. Inspiring female role models shared their amazing journeys and provided interaction through a structured, supportive speed mentoring format.

Watch the video below to find out more about Girls Out Loud Big Sister programme.

The Big Sister mentoring programme targets the girls who sit in the middle of the cohort and simply cruise and are in danger of becoming invisible as they are neither seriously disruptive, nor super academically gifted. They struggle to find their place and often get lost in the noise and either hide in the corner or look for validation in all the wrong places. At Girls Out Loud we understand these girls very well and believe they have the potential to be shining stars. They are the managers, leaders and entrepreneurs of the future and with some investment from a team of awesome role models to light the way they will learn to believe in themselves, find their voice, step up and shine.

Girls Out Loud

Strategic support for Special Educational Needs in Liverpool

Clear Futures and Liverpool Council have worked in partnership to deliver projects at pace to provide modern learning spaces for young people with special educational needs. Our Tier 1 suppliers delivered these projects and our work continues with the construction of new facilities in phase 2.

Read case study

Our strategic partnership with Liverpool

Clear Futures and Liverpool City Council began working together to deliver education projects at pace to provide modern learning spaces for local young people. As our partnership develops, we will explore opportunities to drive net zero action and provide strategic support to the Council to support local key priorities.

Learn more about our partnership

The Bolton office refurbishment project underwent an assessor visit by the Considerate Constructors Scheme (CCS), resulting in Robertson Construction North West being awarded a perfect site score.

The CCS assessor visit is conducted against the Code of Considerate Practice, comprising three categories: ‘Respect the Community’, ‘Protect the Environment’ and ‘Value their Workforce’.

Categories are scored out of 15, and of the 45 available, the team received a faultless score of 45.

Within the monitor’s report, the site was praised for presenting ‘an excellent positive image of the industry’ and for the team’s efforts in attaining spotless scores in each of the three assessed categories.

As a responsible constructor, we ensure that the successful projects we deliver have the community, environment and our team at the fore. It is excellent that the CCS has recognised our consistent efforts and commitment of ensuring best practice. Congratulations and thank you to the Wellsprings project team.

Robertson North West Regional Managing Director Dirk Pittaway

We are delighted to announce that the Bolton Central Library received the bronze award at the Considerate Constructors Scheme awards in Manchester.

With its reopening in January 2024, the Library has entered a new chapter following a £4.4m transformation by Robertson Group North West on behalf of Clear Futures.

The Grade II-listed building now provides new creative and cultural spaces that modernise and adapt it to meet changing user requirements and serve the wider needs of the community.

Congratulations to all the teams involved for their contributions. It’s great to see the library being recognised on a regional level.