Launch day for Construction Centre

Shrewsbury College formally launched its new Construction Centre

Friday the 13th was a good day for Shrewsbury College, which formally launched its new Construction Centre on that date - in another town some 20 miles away.

The College was last year awarded CoVE status in Construction, and the sizeable funding that came with this enabled it to develop new training facilities on a major scale.

But rather than squash in to existing Shrewsbury campus workshops, it was decided to lease a large industrial unit in neighbouring Telford, partly because of its ease of access for Shropshire students and partly because of Telford's strategic value regionally.

The launch of the Centre was timed to coincide with the end of National Construction Week.

It also coincided with the release of figures that show serious problems facing recruitment in the construction industry across the West Midlands.

Only 9,000 new entrants are coming into the industry per year - and the region is under-supplied by about 7,800 jobs year on year, including some 100 plasterers, 500 bricklayers and 900 in the wood trades.

Yet at the same time demand for skilled workers is increasing - new orders to contractors in the region went up by nearly 12 per cent last year.

Employers are showing a keen interest in the Centre, which offers short courses as well as Foundation Construction Awards leading to either college-based intermediate awards at level 2 or an NVQ level 2 through the apprenticeship route.

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