Eco-business on fast track to success

A farmer's son who set up an eco-business in the Northumberland hills, has added formal qualifications to his success, with the help of Defra's Vocational Training Scheme (VTS).

John Harrison, who works on his family's livestock farm at Blueburn Farm, Netherwitton near Morpeth, launched EcoAccess in April 2002, with the help of a Rural Enterprise Scheme (RES) grant from Defra. John hires out a 'Supacat' - a specialist 6 x 6 vehicle - with himself as driver, to work in remote and hard to access areas. The Supacat can go virtually anywhere and John has secured a variety of different jobs with it.

John recently undertook specialist training by LANTRA, the Sector Skills Council for the Environmental and Land Based Sector, to gain formal qualifications in the use of the Supacat, funded under the new "fast track" VTS.

The VTS 'fast track' process significantly reduces the time taken to reach a funding decision for applications from individual trainee applicants to one month or less, enabling training courses to be taken up much more quickly. VTS fast track is available to individual trainees or to people applying on behalf of small groups of up to 10 trainees.

John said:

"Once I had identified my training needs and completed a training needs assessment the VTS fast track process allowed me to receive the training and gain the skills I needed quickly and with the minimum amount of paperwork, helping in the development of the business."

The new business is based on the family's farm, where the Harrisons have also signed a Defra Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CSS) agreement to help preserve and enhance 400 hectares of heather moorland in the Simonside Hills, which form part of a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) and the Northumberland National Park.

Alistair Gray, an adviser at Defra's Rural Development Service in the North East, said:

"VTS grants can be used to help farmers and others in rural areas access training to ensure they have the skills they need to sustain new and existing businesses into the future.

"They can complement other ERDP schemes perhaps helping farmers learn new skills to meet the demands of agri-environment agreements or of diversification, and the fast track scheme is enabling us to make the application process simpler and faster."