SUCCESSFUL SIX: The first workers to benefit from a tailor-made course at the College of West Anglia’s new £5.7m Technology Centre show off the conveyor they converted as part of their learning to company managers and guests.

A GROUP of Wisbech workers have become the first to complete a tailor-made training course using the College of West Anglia’s new £5.7m technology centre at King’s Lynn.

The college devised the training to meet the needs of food giant Nestle Purina and the six who will receive certificates brings the total to around 120 workers from the Wisbech operation to benefit during 15 courses.

Lecturer Paul Webster said skills learned in the early part of the 20-day course were put into practice as the six were given a task to convert a conveyor for new use using a variety of skills ranging from making their own drill stands to pneumatics, maintenance and fabrication.

One of the workers said: “It has been superb. It has been learning at the right level.”

Robert Croxford, a manager for Nestle Purina which makes Felix and Winalot pet foods and employs 660 people across its six Wisbech sites, said the college offered a tremendous facility to help it increase the skills of its workforce which could be put to use in the company’s operations.

He praised the work of the lecturers as well as his own staff who had also benefited from working together as a team.

Nik Mitchell, the college’s commercial training manager, said he was keen to work with other companies to help devise individual training linked to the different operations of firms and was pleased the first one held in the new state-of-the-art centre has been a success.