Telford College has welcomed the newest cohort of road surfacing operative apprentices on placement at highways surfacing specialists Eurovia.

The apprentices, who have travelled as far as Portsmouth, Merseyside and East Anglia, will be stationed across the country maintaining highways.

They will return to the college for training and assessment work on week-long block releases over the 18-month programme.

Students learn how to lay asphalt using paving machines, emulsified bitumen sprayers and compacting rollers; how to setup a construction site, remove existing infrastructure and get involved with the inspection and testing of the new surface.

Gary Davies, the construction assessor at Telford College who teaches the programme, said: “Road surfacing is critical to the country’s infrastructure and there’s a shortage of providers offering the training for this qualification across the country.

“We’re really proud to work with companies such as Eurovia and train up new talent, adding to their skilled workforce and helping reduce the deficit left by older generations who might be retiring.”

Milena Davies, head of early careers at Eurovia, said: “We’re enrolling our newest road surfacing apprentices here at Telford College today, it gives us the opportunity to formally introduce ourselves and meet all the exciting new individuals joining our programme.

“As part of their studies, they’ll be on site working across the country on various road surfacing infrastructure. They’ve already started working with our teams, so to meet them all with a bit of experience under their belt is impressive.”

One of the new cohort of apprentices, Anthony Delwinton, said: “I’ve been laying asphalt, getting really stuck in on-site and learning to work around manholes and gullies. I can’t wait to get started.”

Andrew Tomlins, business director for Eurovia Surfacing, added: “We’re really pleased to welcome our second cohort of apprentices to Eurovia Surfacing and watch their progression through this course. Working with our experienced site teams, it’s great to see our business developing them into skilled surfacing technicians of the future.”

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