Recovery Vehicles Utilised by Students
Walsall College Automotive students now have unprecedented access to training vehicles, by utilising the cars recovered by Police, prior to them being scrapped.
The College has teamed up with the West Midlands Police vehicle recovery unit and local recovery garage, E&S Motors of Queen Street in Walsall, to give students the opportunity to choose and work on recovered vehicles that meet their specific training requirements.
On 18th March 2011, the partnership was officially launched at Walsall College’s Wisemore Campus, with the delivery of a recovered vehicle by Christopher Barker, Vehicle Recovery Manager for West Midlands Police and representatives from E&S Motors.
Once a car has been recovered by Police and cleared for recovery, it currently goes to E&S Motors prior to being scrapped. The new scheme involves an interim step, where the vehicles are loaned to the Automotive Department at Walsall College for students to train on before being returned to E&S Motors to be destroyed.
The Automotive Department is notified when a car is sent to E&S who then decide whether or not it is suitable for their training needs. E&S Motors then transport the vehicles directly to the College’s Wisemore Campus.
The College is set to have access to over 23,000 vehicles that are recovered each year, promising to give students variety in their learning and the chance to practice their skills on modern vehicles.
Dominic Whelan, Curriculum Manager of Automotive at Walsall College said: “This is an amazing situation for the Automotive Department to be in, as this deal gives us almost unlimited access to a wide a range of useful vehicles, which helps the department meet the needs of our demanding and modern syllabus. This is a great partnership and shows how committed West Midlands Police are to helping young people benefit from criminal acts”.
Current Level 3 Automotive student Dean Gough said: “It is great to see these cars in the workshop. It gives us as mechanics the opportunity to diagnose problems with modern vehicles, which replicates life in a modern garage”.
