Huddersfield Town leads fight to tackle flooding menace

After the mopping up operation, our region’s entrepreneurs were determined to make sure they would not live in fear of flood waters. Two Yorkshire firms have joined forces with their local football club in a bid to find a long term solution to the threat of flooding, and inspire a new generation of young engineers.

Huddersfield Town, in association with John Walton Machine Tools and Cummins Turbo Technologies, has launched a competition which encourages local children to devise an engineering project to tackle flooding. The project entitled “Tackle the Future - School Engineering Challenge” will urge groups of children to design something that will change the world.

The club hopes to run an annual engineering project and competition with schools in the Kirklees area.

The project is expected to run in schools between February and June. Initially, the project will be aimed at students at the top end of primary school. With support from local firms, pupils will be encouraged to devise a new mechanism that prevents flooding,

The project will culminate in an awards ceremony on Friday June 16 at The John Smith’s Stadium in Huddersfield where the teams will showcase their ideas and awards will be given to the winners.

Huddersfield Town’s commercial director, Sean Jarvis, said “This is a fantastic project that brings together two of the main manufacturing businesses in Huddersfield and young children from local schools to think about flooding and how it can be prevented.

“Flooding has had a devastating impact on local communities and this competition is part of the club’s desire, and all the key stakeholders in this project, to stop floods from ever having the same impact again.”

The project also aims to raise the profile of engineering and manufacturing with young people, at a time when many manufacturing firms are facing skills shortages.

A spokesman for Cummins Turbo Technologies said: “The Tackle The Future project is aiming to engage primary school students in engineering, empowering them to develop solutions to important local issues, launching this year with flooding.”

Mark Young, the managing director at John Walton Machine Tools, said: “I am passionate about engineering, and I am intent on helping to raise its profile among the future workforce of the country.

“One way of achieving this is to engage with school children in projects like “Tackle the Future” where they will gain knowledge, and hopefully a degree of excitement. This year’s project has a real and tangible local value and we hope that the teams of children can come up with some real world changing ideas. It is great to have a manufacturing giant like Cummins on board, and with Huddersfield Town leading the project, we believe this will be a popular initiative with children, schools and manufacturers alike.”

Local companies who are interested in helping the project should call John Williams, the commercial manager for partnerships at Huddersfield Town on (01484) 484173 or email [email protected].