Thread: Best UK (or Ireland) Training?

Hi,
I'm interested in getting my NPTC certs in the UK. Can anyone recommend a training and assessment centre that does the main courses (Climb trees and perform aerial rescue, small tree felling, medium tree felling, etc.) in one 30+ day session?
Since I'm located in Ireland and there aren't many training centres here I'd like to not have to travel to the UK and back 5+ times.
Failing that can anyone recommend a training centre that runs each course on a regular basis, i.e. all of them within a couple of months?
Thanks for your help,
Freddy

HI Quinn,

Welcome to the site!
To help answer your question:

To do all the basic NPTC in one shot with your time frame in mind - Merrist Wood College (Guildford College) in Surrey does a ten week full time course. you get loads of practical and a good bit of theory to back it up - Tree biology, plant ID, biomechanics, pruning, law. They take you through CS30 and 31 (maintenance and small tree felling) and Climbing and Ariel Rescue and Chainsaw from Rope and Harness (CS39). You also get training in rigging and dismantling. You end up with an Open College Network certificate called Tree Surgery for Craftsmen. It runs four time per year September, November, February and May. It is very popular and well subscribed.

For an independant training provider, closer to you TREEVOLUTION http://www.treevolution.co.uk/ which is based in Snowdonia in North Wales is the bee's knees. They have been over here to Bermuda to conduct training and I've been on some of their courses in Wales. (Also their trainers do work at Merrist Wood) I would recommend them for anything you need or other units, you might want to add on, medium trees, rigging, etc. They go over to Ireland from time to time as well. I see they are doing a bunch of courses in Northern Ireland this year, check the website

Alternately try a search, see what comes up, there are of course many other options than the two I've given, but I have first hand experience with both of them, and I can say you won't be set wrong with either, their techniques and practices are a mix of the basic, tried and true with a good bit of the new and innovative included.

Good Luck

Capel mannor college do a lot of stuff, short course and full time Arb courses. Its highly regarden courses and training. I've done my training there. Other option is BASE no dealings with them myself but Total Arb seem to advertise them a lot

Thanks guys, I'll check them out

Try Kingswood Training Services Kent http://www.kingswoodtraining.co.uk/training.htm

They run a 28 day course at the end you will have Cs30 / 31 / 38/ 39 and LANTRA certs for woodchippers and stumpgrinders. You can also split it up to do more or less.

I'm going back next month for CS41.