NACCESSIBLE AREAS OF OUR LANDMARKS AND BUILDINGS
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“We’ve also worked on Stirling Castle. We were safety cover for a whole load of scaffolding built right on the edge of the crag face.” If the trade allows unprecedented access to the past, it is very much of the present and future. The film, which also features Rua i r idh MacDonald’s Rope Access Scotland based on the Isle of Skye, maintains that industrial absei l ing is one of the fastest- growing industries in the world. Faster and cheaper than scaffolding, it allows trained specialists to access the inaccessible. But there is a rigorous training and grading programme run by trade body Industrial Rope Access Training Association – IRATA – International. Stephen, 35, who is originally from Northern I r e land, had been a sponsored climber so it felt like a natural step when he became qualified in 2001. But it has
The scope of the work has also expanded. The days of working on gutters and drainpipes, as he did when he first started, are long gone.
Stephen said: “When I got into it, you had to be a Jack of all trades but the rope access bit was very specialist. Nowadays, instead of training me to be a painter or whatever, they will train a time-served painter to be a rope access technician, which is part of the reason for the growth.
“When I started off, we were doing gutters and drainpipes but now it’s a bit different. For instance, we worked on the Forth Rail Bridge for two years between 2009 and 2011 during the large refurbishment project.
“We were the bridge-wide rope access company and our job was to be the last
Sunday Mail