The plant training centre, on the same site at Drakelow as three power stations that together form one of the biggest concentrations of electrical generating capacity in Europe, is the CEGB's first training establishment designed specifically to give apprentices "off-the-job" training.


        Craft apprentices spend the first year of their four-year training period at a technical college. They then used to go straight from the college classroom and workshop into a power station to continue their training on actual plant in operation,


        This, despite the high standard of training in basic skills provided by the technical colleges, posed a problem - it is one thing to learn about plant in a classroom, quite another to be given tools and a part in a job on a strange piece of power station equipment.


        And that work - part and parcel of specialised on-the-job craft training for apprentices - had to be done, not in the academic atmosphere of a college, but under the day-to-day pressures of work in a power station, many of them among the largest industrial installations in Britain.


        The centre, built for £345,000, bridges that gap in a trainee's experience. By providing advanced practical and theoretical training on a wide range of power station plant, in the controlled environment of a training establishment, the centre creates a smoother transition from the college classroom to the kind of work done by apprentices on many types of main and auxiliary plant in power stations.


        Today, when a trainee leaves the centre, he goes to a power station equipped to take his place in a work-team and with a working knowledge of the plant he will be dealing with.


        He is the better able to fit into the working pattern at the station - an important consideration now that power station staffs are in pay and productivity schemes.


        When the decision was taken to set up a plant training centre, Drakelow was chosen as the site for a single-storey building - the best environment in which to give trainees formal and controlled training in plant knowledge and skills.

        One factor which influenced the choice of Drakelow was that its three power stations can provide a great variety of generating plant with a long working-life ahead of it. The site also has good catering, sports and social facilities - important for the welfare of trainees, most of whom are living away from home.


        The neighbourhood around the Drakelow stations is also able to provide suitable living accommodation for trainees attending the centre.


        In establishing the centre, which has facilities for 85 trainees, the Midlands Region had several objectives:

to establish and maintain a pattern and level of training to meet the Region's craft manpower requirements; to enable selective training to take place in an "off-the-job" situation independent of plant availability and the capability of craftsmen to give adequate instruction; to ensure, through the type of training the centre could provide, the maximum flexibility of manpower, a necessary component of the Region's pay and productivity schemes for its industrial staff.

        The centre is today playing an important role in giving the Region a steady supply of well-trained craftsmen - and a higher percentage of craftsmen from its own training scheme.


        The complexity of plant in modern power stations underlines the importance of adequately trained craftsmen, and of maintaining their recruitment at required levels - these, too, are further objectives of the centre.


        It was designed by Mr.J.W.Hodges, of the CEGB's generation development and construction division, and built and equipped within 12 months in order to meet the deadline for the reception of its first groups of apprentices.

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