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How Your Business Can Branch Out With Skills Training

Have you heard about South Yorkshire Skills Bank?

Employers across South Yorkshire can access high-quality training and funding to support skills training that will enable them to develop greater business resilience and grow, just like Rotherham-based business, Environmental Regeneration.

Environmental Regeneration has grown rapidly in the last 12 months, supported by part-funded training from South Yorkshire’s Skills Bank, which has promoted a greater resilience amongst the skills of the staff and across the wider business. Skills Bank is part of South Yorkshire Growth Hub, a service which exists to help businesses to find the best possible support to grow, whether that is investment in Skills and Training, access to finance options, support with innovation or export or even helping new businesses to get off the ground.

Darren Butt, Director of Environmental Regeneration, applied for Skills Bank funding for his new team of employees in pesticide training, forestry operations and chain saw certification.

Darren Butt explains: “I’d worked with Skills Bank in a previous role and knew how valuable skills training can be. As we’ve grown, taking on a new people to join the team, a number of them needed upskilling and I wanted to brush up on my skills too. Without the funded training at the early stages of the business, I wouldn’t have been able to grow the team and fulfil our contracts. It meant that the new staff could get up to speed quickly with the skills they needed and meet our customer’s requirements.”

Darren, who had worked for infrastructure services and engineering contractor Amey for 10 years, decided during the lockdown to set up his own forestry and woodland management business offering services to private estates, local authorities and other organisations.

Darren adds: “I enjoy being outdoors and working on worthwhile environmental projects, whether its maintenance alongside the canal network, woodland creation works, tree planting and associated maintenance or general forestry work. I’m passionate about what we do – and I’m really optimistic about the future.”

Environmental Regeneration offers a range of services from tree felling and removal to woodland planting, fencing, hedgerow maintenance, grounds maintenance, tree surgery and vegetation clearance. The business has gone from strength-to-strength over the past two years and now employs nine people.

Alexander Rothwell, Growth Skills Advisor at South Yorkshire Growth Hub, explains: “It is fantastic to see how the Skills Bank training has directly impacted the team at Environmental Regeneration, giving them the skills they need to offer a wide range of services to their customers. The business is a real post-Covid success story and has grown tremendously in a very short time, creating a number of new jobs, which is great for the local economy.”

South Yorkshire Growth Hub Skills Advisors are available across the region to support and assist businesses with their needs. The Growth Hub supports the aims of the South Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership to create jobs and drive economic growth by providing local businesses with the tools they need to succeed.

The Skills Bank Programme has been extended until 2025 by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority. The extension is in recognition of the needs of local businesses and as part of the support to boost South Yorkshire’s post pandemic recovery and renewal. To find out more, visit: skillsbankscr.co.uk or call 03330 00 00 39.

For more details about services available from Environmental Regeneration visit their website here

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by SYMCA .