Page 190 - The Building Conservation Directory 2013

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Useful InformationBuilding Traditional Skills
Kate Gunthorpe
This article reviews recent initiatives
to tackle shortages in traditional
building skills.
Meeting the challenge
One in five buildings in the UK pre-dates
1919. The size of our traditionally constructed
building stock creates a need for traditional
building skills for the conservation, repair
and maintenance of this built heritage.
The first organisations to respond to this
challenge in England were English Heritage
and CITB-ConstructionSkills, the sector
skills council and industry training board for
the construction industry. In 2003 these two
organisations created the National Heritage
Training Group (NHTG), a specialist skills
development group with a UK-wide remit.
In 2005, the NHTG published Traditional
Building Craft Skills: Assessing the Need,
Meeting the Challenge, which quantified the
scale of skills shortages and gaps. This report
and further research in 2008 showed that
only around one third of the workforce then
employed on pre-1919 buildings had the skills
needed to work with traditional building
materials. This skills gap is of particular
concern as the research estimated that
the repair and maintenance of traditional
buildings accounts for nearly half the output
of the construction industry.
In response to these concerns, a
pioneering partnership was formed between
Cadw, ConstructionSkills, English Heritage,
NHTG and the National Trust, pooling
resources, expertise and funding, to take
action and meet these challenges.
The Traditional Building Skills Bursary
Scheme (TBSBS) for England and Wales was
established against this backdrop in 2005 with
the aim of addressing these gaps and shortages
in traditional building skills.
Achievements so far
Between 2006 and 2012 the TBSBS delivered
a wide range of paid on-site training
placements. The partner organisations
worked together with the support of
£1.7 million of Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)
funding to deliver 138 placements.
A broad range of companies and
organisations offered these upskilling
placements. A contractor would act as a host
for a trainee, who learned as he or she worked
alongside experienced craftspeople. The
trainees worked successfully with small and
medium-sized companies and particularly
effectively with sole traders, where a strong
working relationship could develop between
trainer and trainee.
The scheme, however, did face challenges.
While some building skills such as
stonemasonry, solid plastering and carpentry
attracted plenty of placement providers and
trainees, other skills such as traditional
roofing, leadwork and fibrous plastering failed
to attract placement providers or trainees.
In part this may be due to these trades being
perceived by practitioners as less heritage-
focussed and consequently as trades which do
not require specific conservation training to
work on traditional buildings.
Overall, however, the scheme has
been an outstanding success. From 2006
to 2012 the scheme covered a wide range
of trades rather than a single discipline
and was delivered across England and
Wales with the cooperation of five main
partners. Its success can be demonstrated
both quantitatively, as the scheme exceeded
the target number of placements, and
qualitatively by the high standard of learning
experience provided to the trainees by
a wide range of placement providers.
Simon Doyle, for example, undertook a
12-month placement with the TBSBS, followed
by training with the National Heritage
Ironwork Group (NHIG) bursary scheme.
He has now set up a heritage blacksmiths
company with a fellow ex-NHIG trainee,
uniting the traditional skills and conservation
awareness they have learned. He believes
that his exposure to realistic situations and
dilemmas that needed practical solutions
through work-based training was beneficial:
‘I not only honed my blacksmithing skills,
but I learned to deal with historic metalwork
using a conservation approach, adapting my
techniques as necessary’.
Alice Midmore, another trainee, has
continued to develop her carpentry and
joinery skills with two organisations,
Handspring Designs in Sheffield and Felin
Uchaf on the Lleyn Peninsula in North
Wales. Alice said: ‘This has given me training
opportunities I wouldn’t normally have got.
It’s given me the time to build up my skills and
experience on a variety of projects’.
There were benefits for the placement
providers as well. John Guest of Oxford Lime
Mortars Ltd hosted a placement for trainee
Oskar Newadzi who he now employs. John
said: ‘Working with the scheme has helped my
business select, recruit and support a trainee
who I can invest time and effort in, which
has in turn helped develop them and my
company’. Following this positive experience,
he has taken on another trainee under the
Building Traditional Skills (BTS) scheme,
which is now up and running.
Lisa Ferguson was a painting and decorating trainee under the Traditional Building Skills Bursary Scheme with
Angel Interiors Ltd, where she continues to work part-time (Photo: Traditional Building Skills Bursary Scheme)