NPORS Road Planer Training (N216)

A cold planer, also called a milling machine: a wheeled or tracked machine with a pick fitted cutting drum that removes bituminous or concrete surfacing to a controlled depth and discharges it straight onto a lorry through a conveyor. Sizes run from small footway machines up to full lane width.

Five days for a novice, with three candidates to one instructor and one machine. An operator already planing normally takes the shorter experienced worker route, where NPORS allow six candidates, and the refresher is shorter again. We confirm the length when we quote.

Yes, and it is a large part of the week. Planing to a specified depth is the easy half: holding level and grade across the width, cutting clean joints and tapers and getting the edges and the ironwork right is what the client actually inspects.

The water system on the machine suppresses dust and cools the picks, and the course covers why it is not optional. Planings and the dust off a cut contain respirable crystalline silica, so exposure control, the right respiratory protection where it is needed and your own health surveillance all get covered.

No. Operators learn to work safely inside a layout somebody else has designed and set out, which is what this card covers. Designing, setting out and signing the layout is a separate competence with its own qualification, and we will not imply otherwise.

No. The NPORS category has to match the machine. Surfacing experience helps and often puts somebody onto the shorter route, but the planer is its own category and a site checking cards will treat it that way.

Yes, and it is usually better. Operators train on the machine and the controls they will actually use, and nobody loses a week travelling. We need a suitable area where a real cut can be made and a machine in a testable condition.

The Red Trained Operator card, which NPORS issue for two years, or the Blue Competent Operator card valid five years where the operator holds the relevant NVQ. The CSCS logo version of either needs a current CITB Health, Safety and Environment test.

NPORS courses are priced per course, not per person. What you are paying for is the instructor, the registered tester and the machine time, so the figure turns on four things: the category, which route your operators need (novice, experienced, conversion or refresher), how many people are coming, and whether we run it on your site or at one of ours. It is also why a squad works out considerably cheaper per head than sending operators out one at a time. Use the course builder on this page: tell it who is coming and it works out how many days the course takes and how many times it has to run, which is what the price is built from. Then ask us and you will get a figure for that exact group rather than a list price with conditions attached.

We run NPORS courses across the UK rather than out of one fixed centre, and for most categories the better answer is that we come to you: your operators are assessed on the machine they will be using anyway, nobody loses a day travelling, and for a group it costs less. If you would rather come to us, we have centres at Trent House in Stoke, Pride Park in Derby, Europa House in Manchester and Kingsway House in Liverpool. Tell us where the work is and we will say honestly which way round makes more sense.

There is no fixed timetable to wait for. NPORS courses here are run to order, which means the dates are built around your programme rather than ours, and a single operator or a full squad can normally be booked in within a couple of weeks. If you have a card about to expire or a start date to hit, say so when you enquire and we will work to it.