Senior Executive Architect Westmeath County Council

Westmeath County Council

Westmeath

The Local Government sector in Ireland is made up of 31 Local Authorities and 3 Regional Assemblies. Local Authorities are the closest and most accessible form of Government to citizens. They have responsibility for delivery of a wide range of services in their local area with a focus on making cities, towns and countryside attractive places to live, work and invest. These services generally include housing; planning; infrastructure; environmental protection; and the provision of recreation and amenities and community infrastructure. Local Authorities also play a key role in supporting economic development and enterprise at a local level. The Council is committed to increasing its capacity and capability for change to deliver improved public service. The Housing for All strategy sets out the government’s plans to increase the supply of housing over the next decade. Increasing the supply of social housing is a central element of Housing for All, with an ambition to deliver over 90,000 new social homes in the period 2022-2030, including 47,600 newly built social homes over the next five years. Housing for All is supported by a major investment package of over €4bn per annum, through an overall combination of €12bn in direct Exchequer funding, €3.5bn in funding through the Land Development Agency, and €5bn in funding through the Housing Finance Agency. Under Housing for All, the focus is to ensure that we deliver social homes through building programmes led by local authorities and supported by Approved Housing Bodies. Housing for All recognises the need to strengthen the capacity of local authorities to initiate, design, plan, develop and manage housing projects. It also commits to making additional resources available to local authorities to further build housing delivery teams.   An opportunity now exists in Westmeath County Council for the position of Senior Executive Architect. The Senior Executive Architect will work as part of the Multi-disciplinary Housing Capital team delivering architectural services primarily to the Housing Section and also to the wider Local Authority.   Reporting to the Senior Engineer, or such other designated person(s) as may be assigned from time to time, the post holder will deliver a programme of architectural work relating to housing delivery and provide advice to the Council on all architectural matters. The programme of work may include responsibility for the design, construction and sourcing of social housing through various delivery mechanisms, procurement of design teams and contractors, the construction/ refurbishment/ extension /adaptation of social housing accommodation including the energy efficiency retrofitting of existing social housing and other climate improvement measures, construction and refurbishment/ management of Council property, sourcing and assessment of sites and land for social housing and other Council related uses and architectural advice as well as leadership, staff management and input to the positive development of the Council.

328 days ago