HGV Training in Shropshire

Shropshire is one of England’s most rural and sparsely populated counties, covering an area of approximately 1,350 mi.² that is home to some 475,000 people. Perhaps as much as one-quarter of the county has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty while large swathes of land in other parts of Shropshire were appropriated as airfields in times past. Those airfields are now acting as sites for light industrial operations.

Road transport through Shropshire is made possible thanks to a number of major thoroughfares including the M54 motorway and the A5, A41, A43, and A53. Why is this important? Because Shropshire is quickly becoming a major hub for warehousing and distribution in the UK. This means that the local logistics industry needs a lot of new drivers if it is to succeed. You can be part of the industry by registering for HGV training in Shropshire.

Completing our training programme results in you getting a commercial driver licence and your first CPC qualification card. Both will enable you to immediately begin looking for work as a professional HGV or LGV driver. We will discuss the difference between the two in just a moment. Before we do, however, we also want you to know that we offer PCV training for buses, coaches and minibuses. Virtually any commercial driving need can be met by our facility in Shropshire.

HGV and LGV Training

We talk about HGV and LGV training today in a way that is pretty interchangeable. That is because definitions have changed over the years. It used to be that the term ‘HGV’ referred to heavy goods vehicles like articulated lorries and tipper trucks while ‘LGV’ was understood to refer to light goods vehicles including cargo vans and small box trucks. Things are now different. The LGV designation today can either refer to the old definition or to ‘large goods vehicles’.

If you were to visit the National Career Service website, for example, you would find that they refer to all drivers of large commercial vehicles as LGV drivers. The point is this: the HGV and LGV terms are now used interchangeably all across the UK. So while we may use both terms here on our website, all of the training we provide can be categorised under HGV training.

With that settled, let us talk about our HGV training in Shropshire. What is it? How long does it take? Is it affordable? These are all questions that need to be answered if you are to make a wise decision about whether you should undergo training.

HGV Training – What It Is

Our HGV training in Shropshire is essentially a training programme that prepares students to obtain a commercial driving licence by successfully passing a series of tests. Every future driver must demonstrate to DVLA examiners that he or she possesses both the knowledge and skills to be a safe and proficient driver. Therefore, a primary goal of our training is to prepare students to demonstrate that effectively through the testing process.

Training involves several different components, including:

• Classroom Training – Our students spend a significant amount of time in the classroom learning things such as driving theory, regulations, industry best practices, and so on. Training is provided by qualified instructors who have worked as drivers in the industry. Their experience is invaluable to our students.
• Hands-On Training – No amount of classroom training can make up for the hands-on training our students undergo. Hands-on training puts the student behind the wheel of a late model vehicle for the purposes of learning those all-important driving skills. Students learn everything from how to reverse an articulated lorry to making safe turns at junctions.
• Practice – As you might expect, practice is an important part of our HGV training in Shropshire. Students practice in the classroom in order to be prepared for the written portion of the testing process. They practice behind the wheel of an HGV to prepare for the driving skills test. Finally, they practice for demonstrating certain skills relating to the Driver CPC syllabus.

We take a very thorough approach to making sure our students are fully prepared to succeed. And succeed they do. More than 90% of the students across all of our training programmes pass each of the four tests on the first try.

HGV Training – How Long It Takes

You will be pleased to know that you can obtain your commercial driving licence in less time than it takes to complete just one semester of university. Our HGV training in Shropshire is designed around a fast-paced and intense teaching methodology that makes it possible to complete everything in just a few weeks. The truth is, it doesn’t take long to train to be an HGV your PCV driver.

Before you question the quality of our training, consider what it is you are actually learning as a student of the HGV Training Centre. You are not learning to drive from scratch – you have already learned the fundamentals of safe driving in the process of getting your Category B licence. What you are learning is essentially an enhancement of your current skills. We take what you already know and add to it so that you can safely drive commercial vehicles.

As for our fast-paced and intense training approach, there’s no need to be intimidated. We simply train our students in a way that mimics how the brain naturally learns. Rather than presenting students with an overwhelming amount of information as they do at university, we teach our students in short, concentrated bursts. We present information in bite-sized chunks that make it much easier to learn and retain. The fast pace is a direct result of presenting individual concepts in quick succession.

How does this help? By taking advantage of short-term memory. Think of it this way: how did you learn to do maths? Your primary school teacher did not throw everything at you at once in the hope that some of it would stick. Instead, you started by learning the basics of counting. Then you learned to add, then subtract, and so on. You built one principle upon another until you were proficient. Our training works the same way.

HGV Training – How Much It Costs

Now that you know what HGV training is and roughly how long it takes, the big question is one of how much it costs. We understand that paying for HGV training in Shropshire can be challenging. We also understand that the cost of training prevents some people who would otherwise go to school from doing so. That is the reality. However, the HGV Training Centre continually strives to do our part by keeping our costs as low as possible.

We are the significant provider of commercial driver training in the UK. As such, we can apply the economics of scale to keep our prices as low as possible. Just like a big box retailer can sell for less because their volume is higher, we can keep our prices low thanks to our ability to train hundreds of drivers every month.

We also use our size to our advantage in making the best use of resources. In other words, we concentrate our resources wherever they are most needed at any given time. When needs shift, we shift our resources accordingly. This allows us to operate a network of more than four dozen schools very efficiently and cost-effectively. The money we save through efficiency can be passed on to our students by way of lower prices.

Lastly, we provide financing opportunities to those students who need them. If you qualify, you can finance your training through a package that easily fits your budget, allowing you to undergo training now and defer paying for it until you start working. Be sure to ask about financing when you call for more information about HGV training in Shropshire.

Professional driving is an excellent career choice we strongly urge you to consider. Whether you are young and just starting out or an older worker looking for a new career, professional driving has a lot to offer. Drivers earn competitive pay, enjoy extraordinary job stability, and experience a challenging and exciting work environment on a daily basis. If this sounds interesting to you, take a few minutes to learn more about our HGV training in Shropshire. You will not regret it.