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About
Us
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The S.G.D.P. has been working with schools and settings in County Durham and the North East region since 1996. We were originally set up as a partnership between Durham County Council, Groundwork and The Countryside Commission, to meet a demand from schools for the service we offer. In the initial years of the project, the plans were professionally produced by a landscape architect. They often featured expensive landscaping solutions and the focus tended to be more aesthetic than educational. Some schools struggled to successfully fund the projects.
In response to this realisation, we changed strategy and started making our consultation and design process more 'user friendly'. The team expanded to allow a clear split between those with an aptitude for working in schools and those skilled in design. The designs themselves became more easily achievable and value for money with educational outcomes and timescale very much in mind.
Since 2002 the Early Years Development Partnership has been one of our main partners.
In 2003 we joined several other educational projects to form the EWE Centre. Now based within Esh Winning Primary School, we are able to use the surrounding grounds as a test bed to investigate best practice in school grounds design.