Train tunnelling apprentices now, contractors urged

The training operator for the Europe’s first tunnelling academy of its kind, the Tunnelling and Underground Consruction Academy (TUCA) in Ilford, has urged contractors to start training apprentices now to cope with the unprecedented specialist workload over the next decade.

Nigel Donohue, business development manager at CITB-ConstructionSkills said: “We are running out of sufficiently qualified people – and that extends into nuclear as well. We’ve never encountered such a concentration of tunnelling activity as we have coming up in London, nationally and across Europe.”

Up to 14,000 people will be employed by Crossrail contractors at the peak of construction in 2013/2015 with around 60,000 over the term of the project. Other major new infrastructure projects as well as upgrades of existing transport and utility infrastructure include: the Thames Tideway Tunnel; National Grid replacement cable tunnels; EDF/ UK Power Network electricity cable tunnels; Bakerloo line tunnel extension; Chelsea-Hackney line; High Speed 2; Crossrail 2; Nuclear programme – which, as well as tunnelling, requires extensive concrete spraying work which is also being taught at TUCA.

The new £14.2m academy has been backed by Crossrail to the tune of £7m with the rest provided by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills via the Skills Funding Agency.

The Academy will start taking on apprentices in a range of tunnelling specialisms this September and Donohue said they were discussing a programme of shared apprentices which could move from Crossrail to the new Thames Tideway tunnel, for example, and make it easier for contractors to take them on.

Training being offered includes:

• Pre-employment training to help local people access construction jobs;
• Tunnel Safety Card (mandatory requirement for Crossrail);
• NVQ Level 2 Tunnel Operations (mandatory requirement for Crossrail);
• NVQ Level 3 Supervisory Management;
• Working at heights and in confined spaces;
• Construction Plant Competence Scheme loco driver training;
• ConstructionSkills Health and Safety Test;
• Sprayed concrete applications.