Following some careful negotiations with the UK distributor, we are now able to supply Petzl rope access equipment at highly competitive rates.
We are carrying a basic range of kit in stock for drop-in sales including harnesses, descenders, back-ups, work seats and more. We’ve also got a decent stock of DMM’s Patron 11mm rope selling at under £1/metre. Lead time on bigger orders is rarely more than a couple of days, so anytime you need more gear we can provide it fast.
Give us a bell or drop us an email for more info, or pop in if you’re passing; the coffee machine is always on!
Category: ATL news
Panoramic Photos
Top caving photographer Robbie Shone dropped in last week to practice his wide-angle techniques on our cavernous interior. The field-of-view in both of these pictures is somewhere over 180 degrees! Click on the pic for a bigger view.
And here’s Aide demonstrating some techniques for rescue from a diagonal tensioned line.
Happy New Year!
We’re now taking bookings for IRATA courses in 2011 – click on the Courses pages for dates
Thanks to all our customers who helped us get established in 2010. So far we have managed to maintain a superb 100% success rate and we hope to continue this well into 2011. The centre already has an excellent reputation with IRATA’s assessors, one even went so far as to call it ‘the best training venue I’ve seen’.
Our second course for January (17th- 21st) already has a few Level Three’s booked on for revals, so if you’re a Level 3 looking for an advanced workshop it could be a good week. More dates on the courses page, or get in touch via the contact page.
Here’s a few photos from last year’s courses. Look forward to seeing you!
Up and Running
Following our successful audit by IRATA we are now able to take bookings for IRATA courses at all levels.
The first week with spaces available is the 20th – 24th September. Drop us an email if you’d like to reserve a place. The Assessor for this week wil be Chris Degazon.
Courses in the weeks following will be run according to demand, so again drop us an email and we’ll book you a place.
Almost there
We’ve finally got an audit scheduled with IRATA, so all going to plan training should start in a few weeks. As soon as we get the official thumbs up we’ll post some dates and prices. In the meantime you can register your interest by sending us an email, and you’ll be assured first refusal on a place on a course.
Over the weekend Adam attended an IRATA workshop on the updating of the General Requirements – the IRATA course syllabus. This is only the beginning of the consultation process, and any changes will require a wide consensus, but some small but significant changes have been mooted. On Level 3 assessments for example, there is currently much variation in the level of risk assessment skills expected. Further defining the L3’s role should tighten this up, allowing the course to concentrate on more rope access specific work. Increasingly, supervisors carrying such responsibility are required to have the correct training anyway – as of this year, most large sites require supervisors to have attended the Supervisors’ Safety Training Scheme (SSSTS) course (similar to the CSCS card most of us carry) – which covers risk assessment more thoroughly than a rope access course can.
Proposed tweaks to the other courses are minor, but run along similar lines -trying to tighten up the syllabus so that the minimum standard is the same worldwide.
Progress
Things are moving on steadily, and we’ve been hard at work sorting, rigging and cleaning. The venue is now looking great – lots of height, space and variety of structure – all of which should help make for some exciting and informative courses.
So currently we are just waiting for our membership application with IRATA to be completed. So far we have been accepted for membership but need to be audited before running any courses. The process is taking a little longer than we’d like, but we’re planning for our first course to run in August. On the plus side, it should mean we’ll have the building absolutely spot on right from the word go. We’ll update with more details as soon as we have a better idea of precise dates.
A few pictures of progress so far: Matt cleaning, the victorian steelwork, and the classroom.
Beginnings
Welcome to Access Techniques Ltd – quality Rope Access Training based in the centre of Sheffield.
Initially we’ll be using this blog to keep folk informed as we get the training centre up and running. In the longer term the plan is to post regular tips, advice and the odd special offer.
But first, a bit of background… Access Techniques may be a new firm but we are by no means new to the business.
Sheffield, along with Aberdeen, remains one of two centres for the Rope Access trade in the UK. Several of the big contracting firms (CAN, HRS etc) are based in or near the city, and there have been IRATA training courses running in the city pretty much every week for almost fifteen years. For the last few years Aide and I have been the trainers at the longest running training centre – ATS, part of The Access Group. When they ceased trading back in February, we were out of a job and a good number of abseilers were left looking for another training centre. Pretty much immediately we got together and discussed starting up on our own.
The first hurdle was to find a building. A good venue is crucial to good training – having trained in many venues over the years I know that, no matter how good the trainers are, how much you get done will depend on the venue. From our shopping list and initial search it looked like it could be a long job – we needed height more than floorspace, and ideally a roof of the right era that would give us some useful steelwork. Sheffield has a lot of old, empty industrial units, but most were too big, not high enough or lacked a decent roof. Eventually we found somewhere as close to perfect as we could have hoped for; getting on for 12m high indoors, with a bigger outside tower, great steelwork at varying heights, all in a handy location and at the right price. With such a good venue so good it was hard not to get excited about the project and so here we are!
Things are in early stages, but so far we’ve got the most important bits; the venue and the equipment. There’s some work to be done yet but mainly its a case of jumping through a few legal hoops and battling some red tape, the most significant being audited by IRATA. As soon as that gets underway we can start setting dates and taking bookings, so keep an eye on here and the Courses page – we’re aiming for the first course to run as soon as possible, likely July.
In the meantime we’ll be working on getting the unit spick-and-span and fully rigged for everyone from first-time Level Ones to the most hoary Level Threes. We’re pretty confident this has the potential to be the best training space in the country, and want to get it right from the word go. So stay tuned – photos coming soon!
Adam