Plans for a course designed to plug the gap in professionals able to deliver sustainable communities identified by the Government are on track to be made available across England by 2010.

The Academy for Sustainable Communities said it was in talks with five universities over extending the provision of the foundation degree in sustainable communities, currently available at Sheffield Hallam and Northumbria universities.

The foundation degree aims to provide core knowledge and skills in planning, designing and building sustainable communities, and includes a module in ‘strategic and transport planning’. Eighteen students are currently on the course at Sheffield Hallam, launched as a pilot last year.

The syllabus includes the principles and practical implications of different housing and estate layouts. Applicants for the second year of students at Sheffield Hallam, and the first intake at Northumbria, are currently being assessed. London Metropolitan and Salford universities are among those expected to offer the course next year. By 2010, there will be between 135 and 270 places.

Amanda Lane, learning and skills manager at the Academy for Sustainable Communities, said there had been ‘a good cross section of professionals’ on the course to date. Those working in a clerical capacity within local authority planning departments, for example, saw the foundation degree ‘as a route into the profession,’ she said.

The course is offered part-time to allow students to continue to work full-time.

The course was one way of allowing local authority employers to raise the skills of employees, or to ‘grow their own’ professionals, she said.

Employers on the steering boards of every region, which for Yorkshire and Humber had included Sheffield City Council’s regeneration and housing team, also provided work placements for students. Lisa Butchart, one student currently on the course, reported that it had assisted her in ‘critically analysing policy,’ enabling the ‘mystery’ of a Whitehall policy document to be dispelled.