Kit rental firm joins bid to boost apprenticeships
ONE of the UK’s largest industrial equipment rental companies has joined a scheme designed to create new apprenticeships across Birmingham and Solihull.
Sunbelt Rentals, known as A-Plant until a rebrand last year, is the latest business to become an employer partner of the Ladder for Greater Birmingham campaign.
The initiative was begun in partnership with Birmingham Post publisher Reach Midlands in 2018 with the aim of creating more than a thousand apprenticeships across the city region.
Sunbelt Rentals and the Ladder will now work together to find and place apprentices across the city region. Sam Arnold is head of learning and development with the company which is based in Warrington and employs 250 staff at around ten sites across the West Midlands.
She said: “We recruit apprentices based on our situation in any particular year and future skills gaps we’ve identified. For example, we have an ageing population of engineers working for our company so we take on apprentices to meet that need. “We tend to recruit for six months of the year with vacancies going live in March to start in September but obviously last March we were hit with the first lockdown and so much uncertainty so we took the decision to postpone that recruitment.
“We started back up in November since when we’ve been hit by another lockdown but our hiring managers are now actively recruiting and offering positions. The pandemic hasn’t changed our plans or attitude towards hiring apprentices as we are still really committed to doing this and working with local communities to employ local people, particularly through apprenticeships.”
Sunbelt Rentals specialises in hiring out plant, tools and equipment but also supplies portable office cabins and has recently worked with the NHS to support its mobile Covid testing centres.
Ms Arnold said the company was a big supporter of the apprenticeship movement and regularly recruited them at its bases across the UK, especially in engineering to maintain equipment but also in fields such as customer services, accountancy and other support roles.
In 2019, it recruited 68 apprentices nationally, including four in the West
Midlands, and has eight vacancies in the region.
Ladder for Greater Birmingham is now on course to place 500 more employees on top of its 1,000 already achieved.
It is run by community development group The Vine Trust and training provider Performance Through People with funding from the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP and Birmingham and Solihull Training Provider Network.
Part of the ongoing campaign has been our annual Birmingham Apprenticeship Awards which were last held in November and celebrated individuals, employers and training providers across categories.
KFor more information about Ladder for Greater Birmingham and to get involved visit www.ladderforbirmingham.co.uk or call 03332 409 699
PROPERTY giant St Modwen has hailed “strong operational results” – despite slipping to a pre-tax loss of almost £140 million.
Its latest results for the year ending November 30, 2020, revealed the company reported a loss of £139.4 million compared with a £58.9 million profit in 2019.
The Birmingham-headquartered company also saw revenue fall to £342.1 million, down from £429.9 million the previous year.
St Modwen’s chief executive officer Sarwjit Sambhi said the business was “significantly affected” by the covid-19 crisis, despite a marked improvement in the second half of the year.
But over the next 12 months the company has a “clear strategy”, focusing on the two key sectors of logistics and housebuilding which is expected to “materially improve” its recurring income and return on capital.
Mr Sambhi added: “St Modwen delivered strong operational results in 2020 under extraordinary circumstances. Thank you to all our colleagues for their outstanding efforts and for overcoming the challenges posed by the pandemic.
“Our strategy is focused on two sectors, logistics and housebuilding, where structural demand is growing, acknowledging that the economic outlook is uncertain.
“These sectors make up 78 per cent of our portfolio today and will represent over 90 per cent within three years. In both, momentum is strong and we have an attractive pipeline to accelerate growth.”
St Modwen is involved in a host of regeneration schemes across the West Midlands, particularly the £1 billion project to create a new town centre in Longbridge, south Birmingham, on land previously occupied by MG Rover factories.
So far, the work has already welcomed a new Sainsbury’s supermarket, hotel, retail park and hundreds of houses with future plans including a green square and new office accommodation.