The National Skills and Safety Park is located at an active quarry near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, and has been officially opened by His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge.
It is designed to provide first-class, practical training for emerging industry talent – including apprentices, graduates and those retraining from other sectors.
The Duke got first-hand experience of Tarmac’s 100 year-long expertise in road building at the helm of a cutting edge paving machine, as well as being introduced to apprentices in the training centre’s maintenance workshop and trying his hand on one of the company’s quarrying excavator simulators.
Martin Riley, Tarmac’s senior VP who started his own career in construction as an apprentice, commented: “It was an honour to welcome His Royal Highness to our new facility which is already helping people beginning a career in construction and those already established in the sector to develop new skills.
“Major infrastructure programmes are the foundations on which the construction industry and its supply chain are built, providing exciting and rewarding career opportunities for people from all walks of life across the UK who can help shape the built environment of the future.
Tarmac says the opening of the new facility forms part of its ongoing commitment to upskilling young people – with over 300 of the company’s existing staff currently undertaking its apprenticeship programmes. The business is a member of the 5% Club, an organisation committed to ensuring that in the next five years 5% of its membership's UK workforce are young people on training schemes.
