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SIMIAN’s Roofing Training Centre Open Event Success

24th May 2023

SIMIAN’S new roofing training centre in Pitt Street, Warrington was host to a successful opening event on Thursday 18th of May, showcasing our new facilities and bringing together big-name businesses with SIMIAN employees and apprentices. The centre, which is located just a short walk from Warrington’s regional and mainline train stations is ideally placed to meet the training demands of the region’s roofing contractors.

The event was attended by many in the roofing industry, including employers with apprentices either currently training at the centre or with those who will be in the future.

The official opening was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony by Simon Hughes, Managing Director of SIMIAN, who also gave a speech to guests, alongside Operations Director, Dave Randles, and Jackie Thomason, Commercial Director at SIMIAN.

Ruth Scarrott, Head of Careers at the NFRC, also spoke, describing how important the new training centre will be to the future of the roofing industry. She explained that the Pitt St. centre will fill a gap in the North West’s scarce training facilities and support an end to the current skills shortage in the industry.

Live roofing demonstrations from the BMI Group were enjoyed by guests, as well as live training from SIMIAN’s current cohort of roofing apprentices, overseen by Luke O’Gorman, Programme Lead for Roofing at SIMIAN. The event also saw exhibits from several businesses and organisations, such as CITB, Lancastria and Velux.

Speaking of the event, Luke said,

“We would like to extend our sincere thanks to those who attended and supported in making the event a success, in particular CITB, NFRC, BMI Group, Lancastria Group, Velux, and the North West Roofing Training Group, all of whom contributed to make the event a huge success.

We are really excited about the prospects of the new centre. Initially, the concept has been to limit the training provided to apprenticeships in roof slating and tiling and waterproof membranes, but we will shortly be announcing a commercial roof training portfolio, which will initially be based at Warrington, before being rolled out across out other centres.”

Those with an interest in our roof training provision are free to get in touch to find out more by calling 0345 602 2418, or by emailing logorman@simian-risk.com.