By John Silke - GC Ed & Skills Construction Tutor
I’m a Construction Tutor at Trafford Park and I teach multi-skills.
I’m also a volunteer with a local community project who are restoring a local 150-year-old railway station (Glazebrook Train Station) – FROGS (FRiends Of Glazebtrook Station). We’re keen to get a much help as possible as it will be a major project over the next few years. With the support of my line manager (Lee Beveridge), we try and match up course requirements with potential work at the station so that it's something that our students can be involved with and it can count to their course over the year.
We’ve constructed and installed about twelve substantial ‘planters’ (large boxes to hold plants) so far, to fill and use to improve the appearance of the station. We’ll need painters, joiners and plasterers and a lot more as the group get authority to deal with certain areas of the station.
This is a major undertaking and an environmentally sensitive community project – so far, we've only used re-claimed materials and all the construction is carried out by our students – we are hoping to expand our involvement in the future and use the community project as part of the training/final exam process for our students in line with the awarding bodies requirements.
Ownership and authority of the site has been devolved over the years as part of the ‘railway’ breakup and this can hinder/delay some of our planned improvements - but we’re a patient group and have funds available and community support as well as guidance from similar schemes with other stations.