David Dunwell
Shelley Magee
Dave Walker
▸ Feature in the next issue of Lancashire
Emma Walton
DD: It has been our 25th anniversary as a charity and it has been great to take stock and reflect. We put on some new events, which have been amazing, and organised a ball.
We’ve also launched an ambassadors’ programme which has gone really well and in the new year we’re moving our headquarters to Leyland. We’ve had around £100,000 of support from the business community to support that. And we have also launched some amazing services that are making a difference.
AD: For us, success is measured by the achievements of our learners – not just the qualifications they gain, but the destinations they go on to and the jobs they secure. We also take pride in the employers we support along the way, helping to build an incredible talent pool.
I have to mention our Ofsted grading: we’re proud to be the only Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ college group in Lancashire, and the only college in the country to have held that grade consistently for 20 years.
EW: It is just seeing the power of youth work day in and day out. It’s often not the big stories but the small ones that make the biggest difference. We had one young person who was avoiding going into the corner shop because it was too overwhelming. We worked with her, we gave her life skills, career skills, we helped with her CV writing, helped with job interviews, and she’s now got a job and goes to work every day.
We’ve also had success this year with the merger under the Lancashire umbrella. The charities are all still independent and very rooted in their communities and that’s what makes the Youth Zones a success. However, we saw it as really important to bring them together as a collective under the Lancashire brand, and it’s gone really well.
SM: One of our biggest successes has been the introduction of our telehealth offer. It’s freed up space in our face-to-face community venues and, importantly, broken down barriers for those who can’t attend in person. It’s been a real success.
We’ve also expanded our workplace programmes, with team members delivering support directly in the workplace and offering access to a smoke-free scheme.
What are your big plans for 2026?
EW: We are close to opening the two new Youth Zones, in Preston and Darwen; a huge, investment. Our goal is that we’ll be supporting 12,000 young people across the county by the end of the year.
DD: Our office move is going to be the big one for us. We’re really excited about getting into our new space and continuing to make a difference. We’ll also be navigating a lot of system and technology change while maintain that voice for the people who need us and our support.
HB: Looking at how technology can help us and help our clients going forward - that will be a big thing in the next 12 months
AD: We’d like to look back at the end of 2026
and see it as a successful year, with a really happy workforce and fantastic staff feedback. We’d also have great feedback from our employers and partners, with our learners telling us they had a fantastic experience.
SM: Hopefully we can expand our offer on a product which is called Varenicline. It blocks the receptors in the brain from nicotine. We get a lot of people approaching us expecting we can deliver it and we can’t at the moment.
LA: We would like to look back at the end of 2026 and say we’ve fully leveraged AI and we have taken predictive maintenance and energy optimisation to a peak where we can successfully turn around to businesses and say, ‘You’ve hit a milestone, you’ve saved 65 per cent and lowered your energy’.
DW: We’d like to be back into significant growth. I feel very positive about 2026 and what it holds. I think we’ll see investment coming back in 2026 and marketing budgets will continue to be brought back in.
AI is opening the door for us from a software perspective. A lot of businesses aren’t ready for AI. They actually just need some automation and some good systems.
LANCASHIREBUSINES SV
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