News

Funding award to boost local traditional building skills

Saturday 03 Mar 2012

CITB-ConstructionSkills in Northern Ireland have secured funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund through its Skills for the Future Programme to provide high quality, work-based training and skills development opportunities throughout the Province, to equip people for a career in the built heritage sector or for those already working in the sector to expand and improve their knowledge and skills sets. There is a notable lack of opportunity for traditionally skilled crafts people and a lack of coordinated formal training provision in this area.

Working in partnership with Northern Ireland Environment Agency and Southern Regional College the £240,300 grant will be used to provide a total of 28 placements and training development opportunities for a range of traditional building craft skills including brickwork, stonemasonry, dry stone walling and thatching.
The funding will support 12 month placements for six general and three specialist crafts people, the delivery of three weeks of ‘Training the Trainers’ programme for up to 15 Further Education lecturers and the training of four Heritage Ambassadors to act as advocates and mentors for the traditional building skills programme throughout the Province.
Barry Neilson, CITB-ConstructionSkills Northern Ireland Chief Executive said: "We are delighted to receive this generous funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and we are pleased to be working in partnership with them in addressing a key need within the built heritage sector. As the Sector Skills Council for construction, we are committed to providing a range of training and skills development programmes across the industry to meet the needs of contractors and craftspeople including those working in the local built heritage sector.
“Flexible on-site training schemes and obtaining relevant heritage qualifications are essential to preserve our vast range of historic properties and this funding provides a real opportunity for individuals to develop this skill and expertise by working on real heritage projects. By training FE college trainers and developing mentors we are also improving the availability of traditional building skills training that is essential for pre-1919 buildings in Northern Ireland now and for the future.”
Paul Mullan, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund, NI, said “HLF is delighted to be able to support the project as it is critical to ensure we have a skilled workforce for the future to protect the very best heritage from our past”.
Placement opportunities are expected to begin in early 2011 and will be advertised at this time.