Brickies lay foundations for national finals

Two talented bricklayers from Preston’s College have been celebrating success as they were crowned the ‘best in the North West’ at the Guild of Bricklayers’ Regional Competition and also took honours at SkillBuild.

Oliver Evans and Tom Mountain took first place in the junior and senior categories at the regional Guild of Bricklayer finals held at Bury College before taking first and second place respectively at the SkillBuild regionals at Burnley College.

Tom, 20 from Fulwood, said: “I’m really pleased to have done so well in both competitions as the standard was very high in both. “It just shows that the hard graft along the way has been worth it and I can’t wait to compete in the nationals of both competitions and hopefully come back with a prize.”

Kevin Gaskell, bricklaying tutor at Preston’s College added: “We’re really proud of the two lads who have performed brilliantly in both competitions.

“We regularly have competitors winning or placing highly in these competitions and that just shows the calibre of the bricklayers who come through the College.

“We’re all hopeful that these two can go on to success at the nationals where we have a proud tradition of bringing back gold and silver awards. We’ll be doing everything we can to help them achieve that goal.” The Guild of Bricklayers Finals are held at Sussex Downs College in Eastbourne in June. The National Finals of SkillBuild, the CITB sector skills competition, are held in June.