CIC Yorkshire & Humber announce its Grand Tour de Yorkshire

The Tour de France 2014 Grand Départ will focus the eyes of the world on Yorkshire, with its historic and vibrant cities and towns and its amazing variety of stunning countryside.

CIC Yorkshire & Humber has taken inspiration from the cycling route map of the Grand Départ to explore the region through the communities that have been built along the way and date as far back as the Prehistoric.

Sustainable communities are places where people want to live and work because they meet diverse needs and are sensitive to their environment. But sustainable communities have to be built and to this end the construction industry plays a huge part, providing homes, infrastructure, jobs and social institutions. Whether it is the Bronze Age stone circles or modern stadia, construction is intrinsic to the creation of community.

As the location of the Grand Départ, Yorkshire is also building a new type of community for the region, one that combines sport, tourism and media. By following the cycling route map – a new sort of neighbourhood plan – the conference will explore the type of communities Yorkshire had, and has, to offer, from Roman roads to modern arenas, and asks what we can learn from what went before and how we see the communities of the future. The six discussion topic ‘Checkpoints’ will be:

• Leeds Arena – the face of the modern construction industry

• Ripon – how religion built the region

• York – construction with a conscience

• Bolton Abbey – the future of rural building

• Hebden Bridge – a lesson in reinvention

• Sheffield – the future.

Speakers at the event will include John Thorpe, Ian McMillan, Mark Taylor and Tom Riordan.

The Construction Industry Council’s Yorkshire & Humber 2014 Conference will take place at the National Railway Museum in York on Wednesday 25 June 2014. Click here for further details and how to register.