East Durham College is delighted to announce its Houghall campus will soon be taking delivery of a raft of new equipment to further develop the training opportunities on its highly successful land-based engineering apprenticeship programmes.
The College is spending over £600,000 this summer on new equipment for its Durham-based campus and central to this investment is the purchase of a New Holland CX840 Combine Harvester.
Working closely with Russells, in Northallerton, one of the largest New Holland dealers in the UK, the College has been able to secure a deal to significantly update its harvesting equipment, bringing land-based engineering apprentices and agricultural students closer to the machinery being used, and maintained, in the agricultural sector both locally and across the country.
Mike Herrington, lead land-based engineering lecturer at Houghall, said: “This machine will not only improve the equipment available to service the college’s working farm, but it will also allow learners to work on exactly the type of equipment they would expect to encounter in a modern agricultural working environment.
“Our land-based engineering students will be able to carry out vital maintenance and diagnostic testing on this and other equipment to further increase their specialist knowledge and practical skills in this in-demand role.”
The College is also getting a large array of other up to date machinery and kit, including grassland equipment such as a McHale grass rake and a Pottinger grass tedder, a brand new Honda TRX ATV quad, a JF850 forage harvester, a New Holland tractor for diagnostic usage, Krone mower/conditioner, 360 Excavator, a dumper, a top-of-the-range Advanced Dyno Solutions Dynometer, industry leading Jaltest diagnostic system and a Tenstar vehicle simulator.
“As the largest land-based college in the region, this new equipment will further cement the quality of our training offer and ensure we are providing the skills employers in the agricultural sector so badly need,” Mike added.
The College launched land-based engineering last year and has been delighted by the take up from employers such as Lloyd Ltd, Brian Robinson Machinery, Nixons Plant Hire, EasyHire, MGL Group, Courtfield ATC and Russells; and, that the apprentices have recorded an impressive 100% pass rate.
The College has also forged close ties with the Land-based Engineering Training & Education Committee (LE-TEC) which was established by three industry bodies to increase awareness and promote land-based engineering: The Agricultural Engineers Association (AEA), the British Agricultural and Garden Machinery Association (BAGMA) and the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE).
If you would like more details on land-based engineering at East Durham College, please contact Business Development Advisor, Hayley Clifton, at 0191 518 8294 or 07940300771 or Hayley.Clifton@eastdurham.ac.uk
