Moving up the career ladder at Banks Mining

Jake, Owen and Max go through the gears to complete three-year plant mechanic apprenticeships

THREE young people from south-east Northumberland are moving up the career ladder after successfully completing a three-year apprenticeship programme with Banks Mining.

Jake Adkins, Max Anderson and Owen Carr were recruited in 2015 to fill plant mechanic apprentice positions at the company’s Shotton and Brenkley Lane surface mines, near Cramlington.

The three new recruits have since undertaken a three-year training programme which offers qualifications up to NVQ Level Three and helps the apprentices develop a wider range of skills and knowledge that they will be able to use throughout their working lives.

Each apprentice has received direct training and mentoring from experienced members of the Banks Mining team, and has also rotated across different functions to help widen the range of skills they have been able to develop.

Jake, Owen and Max have all now taken on permanent plant mechanic positions and will continue to receive appropriate training and personal development opportunities as their careers with Banks Mining progress.

As well as on-site work, the apprenticeship programme has included a comprehensive study and training programme at Northumberland College, with which Banks Mining formed a recruitment and training partnership in 2012 as part of their continuing commitment to providing direct benefits to the community through its local operations.

The company makes a range of equipment on site available to the College, including engines, hydraulic systems and excavator buckets, which reflects the equipment with which the apprentices work on a daily basis, while visits to plant dealerships and suppliers are also arranged to help broaden the apprentices’ plant knowledge.

Banks Mining have a further four apprentices at different stages of their training programme, and the company’s next wave of apprentices are set to start on site in the near future.

Robbie Bentham, plant director at Banks Mining, said: ‘Providing young people with the chance to develop practical workplace skills is an essential undertaking for both long-standing businesses like ourselves and for the sustainable success of the wider regional economy.

‘Our apprenticeship programme helps recruits gain skills that will serve them well while they’re working with us, as well as right through their working lives, and it’s especially pleasing for us to be able to give young people from local communities this chance to start building successful careers for themselves.

‘Jake, Owen and Max have all been highly committed to and very enthusiastic about our apprenticeship programme, and it’s been very pleasing to see them develop both as mechanics and as people over the last three years.

‘We're glad to see them now moving up to the next level and to have them setting an excellent example for the apprentices that we hope will follow in their footsteps in the future.’