Nelson and Colne College Group invests in electric vehicle facilities

Nelson and Colne College Group has invested £250,000 in new facilities which will train engineers and technicians able to work on the latest electric vehicle technologies.

The new facilities will cover the servicing and maintenance of EVs, battery fault diagnosis and repair, electric motor technologies and the installation of charging equipment.

Funding has been provided from a government Skills Development Fund designed to support the move to greener technologies. Led by Blackburn College, the project will create five electric and hybrid vehicle skills centres across Lancashire at Blackburn College, Nelson and Colne College Group, Blackpool and the Fylde College, Lancaster and Morecambe College and Myerscough College.

Dr Steve Wright, EV project leader, said: "The rollout of electric vehicles is crucial to meeting our country’s climate obligations and it’s vital that the technicians working with these new vehicles and their charging systems are up to date and ready for the challenges of the next era of motoring.

"We’ll be using the new equipment to make sure that all of our motor vehicle students have experience of working with EVs. Some of the new resources are very specialist and beyond the reach of smaller businesses. We’ll be making them available to local employers to upskill their staff if they wish to."

Work has already begun on the purchase of equipment and is expected to be rolled out in the coming months.

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