Any one been on any courses there? Is it still going?
Went past there a few weeks ago, it still looks busy in the hangers there but whether it’s still called Motec I’m not sure.
I passed 3 parts of my City & Guilds for motor vehicle technology there in the late 60’s early 70’s and remember working on very early Daf’s with Leyland engines in them .
Trev_H:
Went past there a few weeks ago, it still looks busy in the hangers there but whether it’s still called Motec I’m not sure.
I passed 3 parts of my City & Guilds for motor vehicle technology there in the late 60’s early 70’s and remember working on very early Daf’s with Leyland engines in them .
I think MOTEC is closed now Trev. Obviously there are other businesses on the site.
Cheers Dave.
Trev_H:
Went past there a few weeks ago, it still looks busy in the hangers there but whether it’s still called Motec I’m not sure.
I passed 3 parts of my City & Guilds for motor vehicle technology there in the late 60’s early 70’s and remember working on very early Daf’s with Leyland engines in them .
So thats where the 1% levy on our payroll went Trev 
when it was screwed out of us by those ■■■■■■■■■ at the RTITB and out of many other Hauliers like us,those smug,“jobs for the boys” used to think we were subservient to them,but all they got off me when they called was a “gob full” and they had to threaten me every year to extract their levy,I insisted that the RTITB levy was the very last account we settled to complete a “financial” years figures.Say you paid a levy of £5000 in a year and tried to recoup any of it with some sort of “mickey mouse” course,you were lucky to get £1000 back,and that only after jumping through all kinds of qualifying hoops.I only tried once to make a claim (with my tongue in cheek 
) and this ■■■■■■■■ from the RTITB thought he’d finally got me on side I filled all the forms in with him (couldn’t keep me face straight 
) and he ■■■■■■ off out of the depot like a two year old.He was back inside a week with a face like a fiddle,"we can’t allow this claim Mr Smith as you haven’t paid last years levy yet and our “collection” department are dealing with the matter "Oh dear"I says “thats ■■■■■■ on my chips then” there followed another gobful, berating this ■■■■ that the levy was only ever Politically motivated and a cost we could well do without as hard working hauliers,I was delighted when the RTITB was disbanded and the levy ceased. 
Cheers Bewick.
I remember doing a vehicle inspectors course at High Ercall in the mid 80’s middle of winter and temperatures down to well below freezing, working in them hangers was no joke it was so cold even with three pairs of overalls on, after the three day course had finished we had to wait for a JCB to clear the road down to the main road, I did return again to do my skills testing there at the end of my apprenticeship. My apprenticeship training was at the Livingston MOTEC in Scotland which was a much more
modern purpose build facility with good accomerdation and sports centre, the worksops were well kitted out, the main vehicles we work on were D series Ford with V8’s.
Is there anybody else on here who went to livinston as an apprentice or on one of there many courses?.
Finally i often wonder what happpen to the Atkinson Viewline which ran equipment to and from High Ercall to Livingston i saw it several times at both places with the same driver.
I have no idea who paid what Dennis, I got sent there for exams when I was at college. The old man barred me from lorries till I had a trade, so I had to start at the bottom in the garage as an apprentice, eventually after several years I made it to garage foreman but since I had been in lorries from the age of 5 as a trailer brake man in the end the call of the road beckoned me.
Tamworth1:
I remember doing a vehicle inspectors course at High Ercall in the mid 80’s middle of winter and temperatures down to well below freezing, working in them hangers was no joke it was so cold even with three pairs of overalls on, after the three day course had finished we had to wait for a JCB to clear the road down to the main road, I did return again to do my skills testing there at the end of my apprenticeship. My apprenticeship training was at the Livingston MOTEC in Scotland which was a much more
modern purpose build facility with good accomerdation and sports centre, the worksops were well kitted out, the main vehicles we work on were D series Ford with V8’s.
Is there anybody else on here who went to livinston as an apprentice or on one of there many courses?.
Finally i often wonder what happpen to the Atkinson Viewline which ran equipment to and from High Ercall to Livingston i saw it several times at both places with the same driver.
hi tamworth
i went to livingston motec for my skills testing at the end of my apprenticeship in 1978 also did a course there on how to train apprentices
did day release at gateshead technical college for four year
cheers
mick
hi tamworth
i went to livingston motec for my skills testing at the end of my apprenticeship in 1978 also did a course there on how to train apprentices
did day release at gateshead technical college for four year
cheers
mickmickd1958
Hi Mick, 1978 was before my time there, i went to livingston in 1985 to 1987, for the technical side of things we went to Bathgate Technical colleage which also ran hair dressing courses ! not a great mix hairy arsed mechanics and hairdressers !!
Bewick,Mickey mouse courses■■? Richard Read sent a few of us on courses and we gained from them.It done me a lot of good when I went owner driver and then built up a little fleet.I still have my class room photos from High Ercall.
Totally agree with you Leylandlover the courses that the RTITB ran at both MOTEC’s were first class, unusual for Bewick to comment on something he obviously knows nothing about !
After a year of arguing about the ridiculous levy, and telling people what I thought of them, I took the view that if you can’t beat them join them.
So ridiculous as it seemed we drew up training plans and job descriptions, which for drivers were absolutely ridiculous as a drivers job is so complicated and new tasks occur all the time. We also helped form Darlington Driver Training and eventually I was appointed a director. All this was necessary to get the block grant, and eventually we managed to make a profit on training, with the grants by far exceeding the Levy. This from memory was either 1.25% of our total wages.
However after about two years we were told to carry on qualifying for our grant we needed to employ a driver assessor, which was a two week course at MOTEC.
After a discussion with my father, where we felt it would wrong to select a driver who then would need to be paid extra for his employment with us for just saying he was a driver assessor, it was decided I would go on the course.
So off the Shropshire I went for a two week course. I had a fit when I went, because although I had a class 4 licence I had never passed a test and was only an occasional HGV drive, because I was in with about twenty very experienced drivers mostly from BRS. We were then told before we could assess anyone else’s driving we had to be able to drive ourselves and were split into groups of two, each with a trainer and we had a Ford D800.
I don’t know how but I managed and passed the course and had a very enjoyable fortnight’s holiday in Shropshire MOTEC. Getting the opportunity of driving round and being driven I got a wonderful experience of the area, both driving and being driven over the famous Iron Bridge many times.
All in all MOTEC was a great place.
All that wasted money has influenced his view!
It would have been about 1971 I attended MOTEC described in my previous post.
I decided to check the year as my memory is azy those forty odd years ago. It was difficut to find but here is Commercial Motors decription of the place
The first comprehensive training course for road transport
Motec 1 is an eye-opener–in the best sense. Although the Road Transport Industry Training Board’s first Multi-Occupational Training and Education centre at High Ercall, Shropshire has yet to be opened officially it has been taking trainees since last October, has passed about 400 through and is already running 21 out of a planned total of possibly double that number of courses. When, CM visited Motec 1 earlier this month, 70 trainees were in residence (250 is the eventual target). A remarkable spirit of purposeful activity is quickly detected by the visitor to this ex-RAF Bomber Command airfield, and all training is the real thing, or a close practical simulation of it.
Mateo 1 is compact for an airfield site. Brick buildings left by the RAF have become offices and instruction blocks, new accommodation has been, and is being, added, while three huge bomber hangars are employed as training halls. And there are plenty of hardsurfaced roadways and standings for the 17 training vehicles–which eventually will become 24, five of them buses and coaches and the rest a variety of rigid and articulated goods vehicles. Despite the on-site facilities, much of the driver training is naturally carried Out on the public roads, and the immaculate white livery of the RTITB trucks and buses is now a familiar sight in the local Shropshire lanes.
Motec 1 will draw trainees from the whole road transport and motor trade fields covered by the Board; for companies within the scope of the RTITB the training is free and also qualifies for a grant appropriate to the status of the trainee and the duration of the course. For the present at least, all bookings for Mateo 1 are being handled through the Board’s H.Q. at Capitol House, Wembley (though applications may be made through regional offices). Eventually there may be as many as 10 Motecs–Scotland and the London area having high priorities. High Ercall will cost f+rn to set up and probably as much per year to run. The personnel strength comprises a general manager, a training manager, an administration manager, eight training officers, 31 instructors and a small administrative staff. (John Darker writes of ,people, policies and potential in Motecs on pages 59-60 of this issue.) The ex-hangar labelled Training Hall 1 provides an excellent example of the practical and diverse activities of Mateo. At one side
roadworthiness inspectors’ one-week iree-week courses are run for skilled nics and drivers respectively (these for transport operators’ staffs); time is I between the well-equipped training it the side of the hangar and the work3rea of the hangar–while a “black m” of neglected and ill-used vehicle nents gives horrid evidence of seizure, a, corrosion and collision,
ie training room, current legislation and lids as the Tester’s Manual are Oroclassroom subjects, while in the workrea–which has a big concrete ramp for ody inspection of vehicles–are some d BMC and Leyland trucks, with tatrailers, which were bought to show the on in which working vehicles will still ley are used as practical–and salumamples. There are also a Leyland /heeled chassis, an AEC tractive unit drawbar trailer–ail aluminium-painted sections cut away to show faults that veloped in service.
icent to the vehicle examiners is the t “school”. This gives lift-truck instrucfortnight’s course and lift-truck drivers a tuition. Facilities include a dummy warehouse four racks high, with cartons, drums, standard wooden palletized goods, and metal cage pallets; an obstacle course for drivers to weave through empty or loaded; and a full-scale modern loading bank with two dock levellers. Two fork-lifts are used, a Lansing-Bagnall electronic reach truck and a Coventry Climax counterbalance lift truck.
As well as being a feature of the fork-truck courses, the loading bank–big enough to take five vehicles end-on–is used for the instruction of loaders, packers and other transport depot staff.
Across the hangar’s central no-man’s-land lies the site of an eventual export packers’ course, while at one end is the furniture removals section. Here new-entrant removals porters were under instruction on a 10-day course during our visit, and the facilities here are unrivalled. Three houseloads of furniture (of typically awkward variety) are provided, of which one is commonly being used with a van for simulated removals, another is in a ground-floor store where safe, compact warehousing is taught, and a third is “delivered” to and cleared from a dummy first-floor flat with narrow stairs, cramped upper landing and awkward turns into the rooms. Training Hall 2 is used primarily for vehicle manoeuvring and is especially useful on those “indoors when wet” occasions that make driving instruction in the open a dreary chore. One of the transport industry’s prime requirements is to train the trainers, and Motec 1 is working hard and urgently at this. The h.g.v. course is therefore for h.g.v. driving instructors, who complete a concentrated two-week course of theory and practice divided between classroom, training hall, a special outdoor manoeuvring area where the driving test can be laid out, and public roads.
The instructor-trainees have to pass out through a full h.g.v. driving test, plus an oral examination. Similarly, p.s.v. driving instructors on the last two days of their fortnight’s course have to take practical and written tests. This course covers passenger safety and p.s.v. regulations as well as driving, roadcraft and instructional techniques.
In a craft block still being completed, an auto electricians’ course of six months’ duration is in full swing, providing the only comprehensive training of this type in the whole country–a sad commentary on the past lack of such vital instruction in an industry where electrical faults are regarded as a particular bugbear. The six months are split into two threes, with a break of several weeks during which students return to their employers.
Each electricians’ course is itself divided between. practical and theoretical instruction at High Ercall and study at the technical college in Wellington. Men of all ages are accepted, both from hauliers and the motor trade. The youngsters are usually on the way to taking their first City and Guilds, and normally will have done other work for this before coming to High Ercall to specialize.
The auto electrician’s shop has workbenches, a range of different types of electrical and electronic test equipment (though it is, curiously, all of one make, so restricting the variety of test techniques that can be demonstrated) and a mock-vehicle training aid on which many permutations of electrical faults can be simulated. The chief instructor is also having his own training aids made up –such as a much-enlarged dummy armature made of wood and coloured string which shows with unparalleled clarity. how the windings are arranged.
Soon the craft block will contain a vehicle workshop equipped with roller brake tester, while other motor trade training facilities include a complete service station with parts store. Forecourt work is accompanied by training in spares selling and storekeeping; “role-playing” is included here, the storeman having to deal with personal callers and awkward customers on the telephone, who know they want “that squiggly thing which goes round the outside of the casing on the gear selector housing” but haven’t the faintest idea of the part number.
Another block, for manager and supervisor training, has separate classrooms, a 150-seat conference room, and "syndicate rooms-, while taped material can be piped to any training area from a central control,
Management training at High Ercall will eventually cover the whole transport field. Workshop managers are already being trained, there is a course for 0 and M appreciation by senior managers, while this month the first week-end courses for haulage management were started. Office supervisors are already being catered for, with really practical one-day and three-day courses covering methods, staff and equipment.
One-week management courses, dealing particularly with legislation, costing and labour relations, have now started too, and other Motec facilities planned for the first half of this year include removals instructor and removals packer courses,
I fully expected to draw some “flak” ,but I am fully entitled and justified as I,and many other poor sucker Hauliers,were FORCED to pay a levy on our payrolls which amounted to many £,0000’s with virtually no way of getting anything back without having to incur additional costs to achieve a paltry grant amounting to a fraction of the levy we had inflicted upon us.I’ll tell you a little tale of what really infuriated me,big style, in the late '70’s.We had started a decent young lad as a shunter and intended to put him through his Class 1,well he drove about the area with the “L”'s on and was,no doubt,going to make a fine driver (which he did),so with all this RTITB B.S. going on at the time,and via K.Fell’s (not Bewick Tpt 
)who were members/shareholders in the local Training group I decided,OK,lets send this lad on a two week course for them to teach him the “dodges” of how to pass his test 
So I rang the Group to book the course and was met with sorry we’er fully booked for 3 or 4 months 
Not long after my call one of the Training Group artics rolled into our depot with a broken injector pipe,my pal was Group Chairman at the time and asked if we could sort the problem,certainly .It was an extremely hot day,our shunters were sweating cobs sheeting and roping trailers as fast they were arriving from the factory next door .So this “trainee” climbs on the back of the Group trailer and stretches out sunbathing.So I walked across to where the motor was parked being worked on and suggested to this “cretin” that he was in the ideal place to see how the other side of road haulage works he looked up and says,“not me mate,not interested,the Dole office sent me on this course and the job looks like too much graft to me” and he gets his head back down I went back into the office and rang the Training Group and,believe me,the language I used to tell them what a bunch of *?@+% I thought they were that they couldn’t re-arrange their scedules to accomodate a lad who had a job and was willing to work hard,but a ■■■■■■■ dosser on the dole like this one in the depot took priority,then he would just return to dossing.In my,still unchanged,opinion the whole RTITB was nothing more than a politically motivated rip off of small and medium sized hauliers like us,with a good dose of “jobs for the boys” at both RTITB establishments as well as at the various Training Groups that sprang up over the country.I never wanted to contribute,nor did I ever want anything from them so why was I forced to pay the levy.So now Lads,it’s alright critising me but how much levy did you pay on your payrolls to the RTITB fiasco? I paid in thousands and got ■■■■■■■ back so I have a legitimate beef financially so to speak 
Bewick.
Well thanks anyway Dennis for your contribution to my course !
Trev_H:
Well thanks anyway Dennis for your contribution to my course !
No probs “Trev” don’t take my coments personal like,and along with been “screwed” for the cost of your course there will no doubt be many others like you that had their courses indirectly paid for by the thousands we paid in RTITB levy at Bewick Transport.If only there was some way I could claim it all back It would be like having a win on the lottery,and nearly the same amount Alas it’s all pound notes down the toilet years ago Cheers Dennis.
1973 High Ercall 3 day Air Braking Systems course.Got me away from the daily grind of pulling out gearboxes,changing road springs,etc and generally sweating my b—ocks off.
No problems Dennis, I never ever gave it a thought of how it was funded, I had presumed it came from government grants and didn’t know hauliers had their arm twisted to contribute.
Livingston is still on the go my grandson is booked for a week there next week. Eddie.
I think that some of our lads went to High Ercall on courses, though I didn’t go myself. A good job that there were wealthy road haulier’s to fund it as the Government would have had no spare cash around for that sort of thing.
Pete.