Around 20 members of Wolverhampton’s Youth Council helped showcase a 360° video at the ‘Our City, Our Future’ event in the Igloo at the National Brownfield Institute (NBI) during the city’s Business Week last week.

The Igloo is a state of the art immersive visualisation suite which works like a giant Virtual Reality headset and, at 9 metres in diameter, is the largest of its kind in Europe, part of the top class built environment facilities at the University of Wolverhampton’s Springfield Campus.

The event followed the presentation in April of the Wolverhampton Investment Prospectus - a living document of the city’s vision and future - to the City Investment Board, on which members of the Youth Council also sit.

After seeing the promotional video that sits alongside the prospectus, Youth Council members proposed the idea of creating a new version of it – but reimagined from the perspective of young people.

This idea was further developed with invaluable input from the Youth Council and morphed into the production of a new video, directed by Wolverhampton-based Sam Davis, Company Director & Filmmaker at Henry Go Park the Car Productions, to bring the prospectus to life. 

Jaipal Uppal, Chair of the Youth Council, said: “It is interesting and exciting that young people can attend and contribute to the City Investment Board. 

“As members of the Youth Council we take this very seriously and always feel like our views are listened to and that we can make a difference.

“It is great to see our idea to create this video become a reality and to be able to see it in 360° in the Igloo is even better.   

“We really hope it can be used to great effect to showcase the city and bring in further investment – we have lots more ideas for how that investment could be spent.”

City of Wolverhampton Council Leader, Councillor Stephen Simkins, said: “The opportunities outlined in the investment prospectus are genuinely exciting for the city. They’ve already generated huge interest from investors and developers, and we’re looking forward to seeing the projects come to fruition in the coming months and years ahead.

“But I think it is fair to say that it is the young people and their peers, who will benefit most from the ongoing regeneration of our city – giving them a more vibrant place to live that will create more opportunities for them.

“It is incredibly important to have representatives of the Youth Council sitting on the City Investment Board. They bring such an important voice and perspective to the table and are key to the discussions and decisions as the youth of our city are our future.

“The Igloo allows us to bring the video to life and really showcase the city to visitors to the NBI. We think it can have a real impact on selling our vision and securing investment in the future.”

To view the Wolverhampton Investment Prospectus visit Wolverhampton Investment Prospectus | Invest in Wolverhampton.