Wrekin Products has signalled its commitment to workplace skills by opening the Wrekin Academy, a training centre for demonstrating best practice when it comes to highway ironwork installation, specifically developed to meet the needs of industry professionals including builders’ merchants.

Already at the forefront of developing products and systems to prevent manhole covers from failing prematurely, Wrekin has now turned its attention to ensuring lowest possible manhole cover and gully grate lifetime cost by supporting a right first time approach to specification and installation.

The Wrekin Academy includes a specially designed Training Track: a stretch of road constructed at its Lichfield headquarters where professionals throughout the industry can practice the latest installation techniques to improve the standard of ironwork workmanship, learning to identify and understand common pitfalls and how to correctly and reliably overcome them.

Courses are available to professionals specifying highway ironwork, as well as builders’ merchants looking to equip their teams with the knowledge to deliver well informed advice and to highway contractors themselves tasked with delivering robust installations.

Simon Turner, sales director at Wrekin Products, said: “Even when the best products are specified, mistakes during installation can quickly lead to unwanted repair or replacement costs.

“That’s why we’ve invested in the Wrekin Academy to support builders’ merchant teams in advising their customers and give installers the knowledge to do the best job and raise standards.”

The Wrekin Academy blends a classroom learning environment with hands-on experience on the Training Track. For learning purposes, Wrekin Products has also made lightweight aluminium replicas of some of its most popular products so they can be easily handled in the classroom.

The opening of this training facility emphasises Wrekin Products’ commitment to forming strong partnerships with users of its civil engineering solutions, including ductile iron manhole covers, steel covers, geosynthetics and water management products.