Beard & Tandy latest business to partner with Forest of Dean training facility AccXel

By Nicky Godding

28 January 2022

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Gloucester-based construction company Beard & Tandy Developments Ltd. is the latest company to sign up as an Employer Partner with AccXel, the new Construction Skills Accelerator Centre which opened in Cinderford last year.

It company has pledged to give AccXel's apprentices paid work throughout the duration of their studies, but will also be upskilling their current workforce using the training centre's unique Skill STEPS© Programmes.

Beard & Tandy are based at Highnam, Gloucestershire. Although the company was reformed and renamed in 2010, over the past four decades the team has undertake a variety of different projects across the residential, commercial, industrial, educational and private sectors.

AccXel has been co-funded by the government, GFirst LEPand the family-owned construction business, K W Bell Group. The school has been established to tackle the severe skills shortage plaguing the construction industry, by recruiting new talent to the sector, helping the existing workforce progress to the next phase of their career and connecting both the education and industry sector to accelerate new skills.

AccXel has already secured industry partnerships with industry giants JCB and Leica Geosystems, which have supplied the centre with the highest spec technology for recruits to practise on before they start working on construction sites.

They have also secured partnerships with local and national construction companies to facilitate new employment for apprentices and career changers as they enter the industry. Their partnered businesses collectively have an annual turnover in excess of £2bn and have all pledged to provide employment for 80 of AccXel’s construction apprentices in the first year. Some of these highly reputable partners are Gloucester-based Barnwood Construction, Bloor Homes, Glouceser-based groundworks contractor Coslin Construction, Walters, and national plant rental business headquartered Gloucester, Keyway.

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.