OPENING OF THENEW SCAFFOLDING HANGER
NATIONALCONSTRUCTION COLLEGE, ERITH
Thank you, John, for that kind introduction which is muchappreciated and thank you, Madam Mayor, for being with us today as chiefelected representative of the local community.CITB, of which the National Construction College here at Erith and inthree other places in our country is part, greatly values its links with ourpublic officials, whether elected councillors, MPs, or MEPs, and with theirpermanent officials.
The construction industry is a national industry. It is working at any one time in everyconstituency in the country, so it naturally liaises with elected Councils, andwith non-elected bodies such as Health Trusts, at all levels. But it is also a local industry, with deeplocal roots, through firms which have been based in their areas for generations,and families which have produced top class trades people for generations aswell. They value their local links andtheir locality values them. The largebuilding company of which I am Deputy Chairman, and, previous to mysemi-retirement, Chairman, owns a company in South Wales which trades underquite a different name which we have no intention of changing because its linkswith the local community go back over a century and are widely respected andknown. So it is very good that we hereat Erith see ourselves, and are seen by you Madam Mayor, as both a major local,as well as a national, resource for training and upskilling our workforce.
So it is a great pleasure to be here today. I have visited all the Area Offices of theBoard in the last 9 months, and the training centres of the NationalConstruction College at Bircham Newton and at Glasgow. But this is my first visit to Erith, which Ihad planned to do as soon as possible anyway, and am hoping to visit the fourthNCC site, in Birmingham, in the next few months.
I want to thank John Sheppard (NCC South Manager) andDavid Boyden (National NCC Manager) for their invitation today. It is good to be with you and to see so manypeople today with a profound interest in the work here at Erith.
This is a celebration for two things the first isscaffolding itself, and Eriths relationship to it, and the second is Erithsinvestment in the future.
Scaffolding is an essential part of the industry. Very few building or refurbishment sites arewithout scaffolding at some stage in the work, and so also are plenty of civilengineering sites such as bridges. Itis not only vital, it is also potentially dangerous, both to those working onit and those underneath or round about.So training on how to unload it from delivery vehicles, how to assembleit, how to act safely on it and then how to remove it, are not options for anyresponsible firm, whether they be a main contractor providing it as part of thesite preliminaries, a specialist scaffolding contractor erecting it, or theother specialist contractors such as roofers, or any other trades, who will beworking on it. Certainly, training andsafety are not options and responsible firms and their customers, rightlyinfluenced by Ministers, the HSE and other public authorities such as localgovernment concerned with public safety, have increasingly insisted upon it andmade provision accordingly.
The National Construction College is a major player inscaffolding training, both in terms of site proficiency and the equally vitalsite safety. NCC has been quick toreact to demand from the industry and from clients and has delivered theimproved training facility which we are here to welcome today. It will allow us to increase scaffoldingtraining at Erith by some 50%. Thisweek we will have 78 trainees here in total and the new facilities will allowfor another 35 to 40.
The new scaffolding facility represents a major stepforward and we particularly welcome today this latest and largest of a numberof investments which CITB has made here at Erith. Companies in this region of the country will find no bettertraining or facilities than these now on offer at the National ConstructionCollege South. But it is not the onlyimprovement. We have also developed gastraining in association with Zurich, upgraded three lecture rooms, providedsome new roofing rigs to improve our roofing training facilities and newparking facilities. This investmentfurther demonstrates the National Construction Colleges commitment to having acompetent and professional construction workforce, and it also helps toencourage youngsters from this region to come and work in one of Britainslargest and most important industries.
Of course, NCC is not only concerned with scaffoldingtraining, very important though that is. The College trains both adults and apprentices across a wide rangeof disciplines as well as scaffolding.It provides courses in general construction, in surveying and settingout, in plant operations and maintenance, in flooring and roofing. CITB is the largest single provider ofhealth and safety courses in the construction industry and the NCC is alsoheavily involved in supervisory and executive management programmes.
Why does it do all this?Why do we think it important to invest significant sums of money to havehigh quality and modern facilities? Itis because best practice training and commitment to safety are at the heart ofCITBs agenda. When I say CITBs agenda,I would stress that CITB has no agenda apart from the industry. It is there to help serve large firms likemine and very small ones equally.Its duty is to help to deliver and frequently to lead the industrysrequirement for safe and decent sites.Alas, as we all know, by no means all sites in the industry are eitherdecent or safe. Those which are neitherare letting down their clients, their workforce and the industry as awhole. They are also a majordisincentive to young people coming into our industry. Those who are parents, particularly of youngteenagers, will not be over keen to encourage their sons, let alone theirdaughters, to go into construction if all they have seen of the industry is theuntidy and chaotic looking site just down the road from their house or next totheir place of work. And if they alsonotice people wandering around the site without personal protective equipment,or up on scaffolds without any safety harnesses or safety boards, they willthink to themselves, my John or Joan is never going there. Thats exactly the kind of attitude whichCITB as a whole, the NCC at Erith, and all responsible employers, federationsand trade unions in the industry want to fight against. And when I say fight against, I dont meanjust agree with perfectly understandable parental concerns about poor site management. I mean being able to say to caring parentsand to the young people themselves, No, it doesnt have to be like that. There are many smaller firms who train theirworkforce properly, who follow scrupulously the best safety practice both onand off site and who know that it is their duty to put such issues at thecentre of their business practice.
This is a vital industry.It has much to be proud of, and it by no means always does or saysenough to be seen to best advantage. Itshould take pride in its great achievements, and in the fact that all of us areusers of it. Our homes, our schools,our offices, our hospitals, our roads, our airports, our waterworks, ourrailways, our cafes, cinemas, holiday areas, anything else you wish to think of,have all been created by the British construction industry. Its products long outlive those who builtthem, and are a source of pride to the site team themselves. This is an industry which needs to be welltrained, and it can be, because the National Construction College and CITB as awhole are there to help. It is anindustry which needs to be safe, and it can be, because facilities like thesewe see today are here to give such training.And it is an industry which should be proud of itself and, rightly so,because it has, quite literally, built Britain.
Thank you all very much for coming. Thank you all who have in any way beeninvolved in providing these new facilities.I wish continuing success to all who will train here, and those who willlead and assist that vital training.