Eastern Region Roof Training, going the extra mile for UK Antarctic Heritage Trust

8,772 extra miles to be exact!

For the second year running we have again delivered a bespoke package of Health and Safety courses for the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust team who are now on their way to Stonington Island, a British Historic site and Monument 450km south of Port Lockroy (a restored hut and visitor site on Wienke island) some 8,772 miles away from our specialist Ipswich based training facility. Port Lockroy is a natural harbour on the north-western shore of Wiencke Island in the Palmer Archipelago in front of the Antarctic Peninsula. the facilities of Port Lockroy are only accessible during the summer months due to the climate.

Influenced by a polar-maritime air mass, the average annual temperature in Port Lockroy is approximately -3 degrees Celsius.

Tim Burton, Antarctic Operations Officer for the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust commented:

“Eastern Roof Training ran a bespoke training day for the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust conservation team. They are on their way to Antarctica now and will spend 11 weeks carrying out emergency repair and conservation work on the southernmost British historic base on the Antarctic Peninsula. The base was abandoned in 1975 and has endured the Antarctic weather without any significant maintenance since. Logistically it’s very difficult to access so it’s much more challenging to work on, in comparison to a heritage building in the UK, where it would be fully scaffolded and have anchor points installed. We have to work within what is reasonable at such a special and remote site and the Managing Director of Eastern Region Roof Training, Clive Coote, spent a lot of time going through the details of our specific needs, before running what was a very useful course for the team. It both opened their eyes to some new techniques and provoked lots of discussion about the best way to safely carry out the work on the buildings. This is our second year working with the Eastern Region Roof Training Group and once again they delivered a useful and informative course for the team.”

You may not be going to the Antarctic any time soon but should you have a more local need for a wide range of Health and Safety Training courses, then visit www.easternregiontraining.co.uk or www.eastern.rooftraining.co.uk or call us on 01473 830255 to discuss your needs, bespoke packages available.

Further details about UK Antarctic Heritage Trust can be found at http://www.ukaht.org/