Ayrshire Housing is pleased to be supporting access to high quality training in the construction industry through the highly regarded Access Construction Ayrshire programme.
As project managers for South Ayrshire Council’s first Council housing in 30 years, the association extended the programme to the project’s builder CCG. As a result they recruited two apprentices – Nathan Brown (to the right in the picture) and Steven McCallum. They were congratulated by SAC Councillors John Hampton, Nan McFarlane and Douglas Campbell on a recent visit to see progress on the site. Steven is from Saltcoats and Nathan from Dalmilling in Ayr.
Since in 2004, Access Construction Ayrshire has helped more than 30 individuals gain employment with linked training in the building industry. Through the programme, unemployed people are encouraged to seek employment with a contractor as an apprentice, trainee labourer or trainee administrator. It targets individuals who are close to job ready but who would not otherwise consider applying for a construction job with a training commitment. Originally focused on its own building contracts, Ayrshire Housing has extended the model across Ayrshire, leading a consortium of four housing associations. The development and day to day management of the project is by the Ayr based Social Enterprise Aspire2gether.
In addition to Nathan and Steven, five more trainees have been taken on this year by Prestwick based Ashleigh (Scotland) Ltd and maintenance contractor Mitie in the programme’s latest phase.
Successive phases of Access Construction have been made possible by Scottish Government wider role grants.