His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge has officially opened Tarmac's industry leading National Skills and Safety Park and even tried his hand at some road paving.
Located at an active quarry near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, the facility helps train apprentices, graduates and those retraining from other sectors, including princes.
Prince William had some 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 vice president, who started as an apprentice himself, said: '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. We’re extremely proud to launch this new facility.'
The Duke also joined a meeting with chairs, CEOs and MDs of leading UK businesses meeting at Tarmac’s National Skills and Safety Park to discuss joint opportunities for UK companies to support social mobility and to improve the options available to young people in all parts of British society. The discussions were hosted by former transport secretary Justine Greening, co-founder of The Social Mobility Pledge and John Whelan MBE.
Tarmac has over 300 staff currently undertaking its apprenticeship programmes. The business is also a member of the 5% Club, an organisation committed to ensuring that in the next five years 5% of its memberships UK workforce are young people on training schemes.
