Asphalt Reinforcement Services has become the first Road Surface Treatments Association contractor to gain qualified assessor status for delivery of QCF National Vocational Qualifications for geosynthetics and steel meshes.

The Bedfordshire based company operates nationwide and offers a range of asphalt reinforcement systems as inlays and overlays to extend pavement life. It has now granted NVQs to two of its employees.

Assessor status means that the company has been able to support its learners, with on the job training and on the job assessment to Level 2 NVQ. The qualifications gained by the workforce demonstrate their competence to potential clients in installing geosynthetics and steel meshes.

This comes at a time when the market is calling for more technical competence in the area of bound surface treatments to meet health and safety requirements.

Asphalt Reinforcement Services now plans to put all of its workforce through NVQ qualifications in accordance with National Highway Sector Scheme 13. Crucial to this development has been the support of the Road Surface Treatments Association.

“The RSTA has been a great help," said the Asphalt Reinforcement Services' managing director Howard Cooke. “For a small to medium sized enterprise like us they are excellent at helping us to take these initiatives forward. We work closely with them through the RSTA Assessment Centre.”

Operatives have benefitted too, Mr Cooke adds. “At first the learners were daunted by the need to take an assessment. But they soon took up the mantle and were urging me to come out on site to see what they were achieving when installing GlasGrid.”

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