Telford College paves the way for road surfacing careers
Telford College has welcomed a new cohort of road surfacing operative apprentices on placement at highways surfacing specialists Eurovia.
The apprentices have come from all over the country, including Merseyside and East Anglia, where they work on maintaining the highways network.
They are attending the college’s Wellington campus for training and assessment work on week-long block releases at regular intervals over the 18-month programme.
Students learn how to lay asphalt using paving machines, emulsified bitumen sprayers and compacting rollers, how to set up a construction site, remove existing infrastructure and get involved with the inspection and testing of the new surface.
Gary Davies, the construction assessor at Telford College who teaches the programme, said: “Road surfacing is critical to the country’s infrastructure and there’s a shortage of providers offering the training for this qualification across the country.
“We’re really proud to work with companies such as Eurovia and train up new talent, adding to their skilled workforce and helping reduce the deficit left by older generations who might be retiring.”
Milena Davies, head of early careers at Eurovia, said: “We’re enrolling our newest road surfacing apprentices here at Telford College. It gives us the opportunity to formally introduce ourselves and meet all the exciting new individuals joining our programme.
“As part of their studies, they’ll be on site working across the country on various road surfacing infrastructure. They’ve already started working with our teams, so to meet them all with a bit of experience under their belt is impressive.”
Andrew Tomlins, business director for Eurovia Surfacing, added: “We’re really pleased to welcome our second cohort of apprentices to Eurovia Surfacing and watch their progression through this course. Working with our experienced site teams, it’s great to see our business developing them into skilled surfacing technicians of the future.”
