Salop’s director, Christopher Greenough, reveals: “We’ve got eight apprentices signed up and we’re aiming to get another 20 signed up in February. By next October, we’re hoping to have 60 apprentices a year running through our training academy.” It will take on apprentices from any Shropshire business.
The 10,000 ft2, £300,000 facility, at Salop’s Brixton Way factory, is equipped with lathes, milling centres, surface grinders, welding bays and state-of-the-art teaching areas. A new 10-seat CAD training room was also unveiled and announced as ‘The Dickie Homden Design Suite’, in honour of the founder of Salop Design and Engineering.
“Shropshire is crying out for more dedicated industry-led provision in order to support its resurgent manufacturing base…we’re hoping our Academy will start to address this skills gap,” explains Gareth Jones, managing director of In-Comm Training & Business Services.
“Our relationship with Salop Design dates back more than 40 years, which in that time we have helped developed apprentices and worked together on promoting UK manufacturing to young people.”
He continues: “We knew we wanted to establish a presence in Shropshire and the management at Salop said they would be happy to dedicate some space inside their factory to make it happen.
“Together, we have created a world class training facility that combines expert teaching, access to new machinery/design capabilities and the opportunity for apprentices to witness theory being applied on live manufacturing projects.”
In-Comm Training Academy Shrewsbury (ITAS) will provide intermediate, advanced and higher apprenticeships to 16-24 year-olds looking to carve careers in fabrication and welding, maintenance, production, quality, toolmaking and precision engineering.
Initially, there will be around 60 industrial places available, with plans already in place to increase this figure to 100 by 2018.
At the same time, ITAS is also looking to offer apprenticeships in administration, customer service and business management.
Gareth continued: “Interest in what we are offering has been huge, with eight employers already signed up to train their young people at our Academy. This includes Mail Solutions and Bill Carr Precision Engineering.”
Christopher Greenough adds his support:
“We have always been committed to enhancing the learning experience of our own staff and the pace we are expanding means there is now an even greater need to be able to bring new people through to bolster our current workforce and help us achieve even more.
“Having the Academy on our doorstep means our apprentices aren’t travelling 50 miles to get the learning they require, whilst we have easy access to fantastic training facilities that other members of our staff can use.
