UK: The Transpennine Route Upgrade programme is ‘an investment in people’ and ‘it really is important that these projects leave a legacy of skills’, Rail Minister Huw Merriman said when he announced the latest tranche of funding.
Speaking on December 4, Merriman said ‘if you look at the 8 000 people that will be employed on this project, 80% of those will be from within a 40 mile radius of this project. We will be looking at 1 000 apprentices working on this at the start of their careers, and in the years to come they will be the ones presenting the next vision for rail.’
Asked by Rail Business UK how continuity can be assured for the apprentices, after many of those who were taken on several years ago to support electrification programmes were released as projects were cancelled, Merriman said ‘this is going to take years to deliver so the aim with the apprentices is for them to learn their skills, get their qualifications and then as they become more senior they will continue working on this project. As it’s going to take years to deliver it comes in different phases.’
He said ‘they can go and work on the Northern Powerhouse Rail itself, so this is a precursor to that much bigger investment that will come afterwards. I am sure they will be here for years and years and if not working on this railway, then on other projects that are part of the Prime Minister’s Network North announcement.’
He also suggested that once trained the apprentices could use their skills in other countries, saying that they might be ‘exported to make more money from our projects abroad and that’s good for UK plc as well as the opportunity for these apprentices to travel and to deliver railways like we always have done in this country’.
