Ringway and Wiltshire Council are working with the charity Building Heroes to support ex-servicemen and women in finding employment in the UK's highways sector.

Trainees started a course this week, equipping them with the core skills needed for a career in the highways sector.

The three organisations have created a dedicated training centre at Semington, near Ringway's Melksham office.

The Civils and Groundwork Academy at Semington is on a site provided by Wiltshire Council and will provide a safe, practical space for technical, hands-on training in skills such as excavation, laying drainage, searching for underground services, setting out secondary dimensional controls, safe-dig, and kerb laying.

The goal is to retrain veterans into a new industry over five weeks.

Ringway and Building Heroes have designed the programme to cover broader skills, including health and safety, digitalisation and IT, and employability - all in addition to the technical skills needed to become a skilled highway operative.

Established in 2014, Building Heroes is dedicated to supporting service leavers, veterans, reservists, and military families and has always provided building and construction training and routes to employment in the building sector.

Each 'learner' will be given work experience during the programme and will be guaranteed an interview. The course leads to a recognised qualification and the course is SQA approved and leads to a Level 2 in Construction Operations.