A BOILERMAKERS society has received a lottery grant of more than £620,000 to train more apprentices.

The Boiler and Engineering Skills Training Trust (BESTT), based in Greenfield Lane, Idle, but operating across the UK, has been handed a grant worth £622,200 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) under its Skills for the Future programme.

The trust will use the grant to extend its syllabus-based training for mechanical overhaul across the heritage steam sectors. This will include recruiting 16 apprentices to learn how to overhaul the mechanical components of steam locomotives, ships and road vehicles, who work on a number of heritage workshops across the UK.

These trainee placements will last up to 15 months and lead to a specialist qualification for each course member.

The trust’s programme will also look to recruit trainees from areas of deprivation and high unemployment.

The need to train up a younger generation of skilled trainees, as the last generation who grew up with steam in daily service retire.

BESTT, which represents all steam sectors, is dedicated to providing a training programme to address the shortage of skilled craftsmen who can repair and maintain heritage steam boilers.

Gordon Newton, BESTT chairman, said: “We are delighted to have this further grant from HLF which will enable us to extend syllabus-based training to a wide range of steam overhaul workshops across the UK and by widening our recruitment we are creating more sustainable support for heritage.”

A total of six railways across the UK have teamed up with BESTT on this training programme.

Nick Ralls, general manager of Severn Valley Railways, based in Kidderminster, Worcestershire and one of the participating railways, hailed the importance of the trainee scheme.

He said: “The Severn Valley and another five railways who are partnering with BESTT on the training programme see this as vital to our future.

“It is part of showing young people that there is a satisfying job with good prospects in the steam sector.”

Richard Gibbon, BESTT technical panel member, said: “The syllabus-based training wit independent assessment which BESTT has pioneered for boilers has been shown to work and our mission now is to extend this to mechanical overhaul and create something which any steam repair workshop can adopt.”

This latest training programme follows BESTT’s Boilersmith training programme has just been completed and featured the first female trainee to undertake a full foundation boilersmith training in 200 years.

This group of 16 trainees has seen 12 secure paid boilersmith employment in this sector. The remaining four are self-employed or looking to find work in this area.