Later this year John Deere will open its new £1.5m training facility situated at a farm site in Upper Saxondale near Bingham in Nottinghamshire.

The centre is set to open to mark the 30th anniversary of John Deere’s first ag tech apprentice intake, who were enrolled at the Brooksby Melton College in 1992, the firm’s original partner.

John Deere's first apprentice training centre was established five years ago at Radcliffe-on-Trent.

The firm's training programmes cover its ag tech (agriculture), turf tech (turfcare) and parts tech (parts management) divisions.

Training

John Deere appointed ProVQ in 2015 as its partner to deliver such training programmes on behalf of its UK and Irish dealers. ProVQ has been around since 2005 and today trains over 600 apprentices. Current full-time ProVQ staff will continue to be managed by James Haslam at the new training centre from the autumn.

Allan Cochran, John Deere Limited training centre manager said: “We are really looking forward to establishing this new bespoke facility close to our UK headquarters at Langar. As our dealership businesses continue to grow, there is increasing demand for qualified technicians equipped with the correct knowledge and skills to support that growth. We have therefore recognised the need to increase the capacity of our already successful and industry leading training programmes even further.”

Speaking about the new training facility Cochran said: “The new site will feature a purpose-built two-storey unit in addition to refurbished and extended farm buildings, effectively almost doubling our available square footage. The premises will include a bigger workshop space as well as larger classroom and cafeteria facilities. Most importantly, this will give us the capability to double our throughput of trained technicians to meet dealer demand.”