IN Brief:
- Citrus Training has opened a 63,600 sq ft London facility at Farley House, Freshwater Road, Dagenham.
- The centre replaces approximately 15,000 sq ft of space in Brentwood and accommodates more than 120 delegates per day.
- Outdoor plant and street works areas, indoor classrooms and a confined space simulation room support construction and infrastructure qualifications.
Citrus Training has opened an expanded construction and infrastructure training centre in Dagenham, replacing a smaller facility in Brentwood after investment exceeding £2m. The new premises at Farley House, Freshwater Road, provide 63,600 sq ft of operational space and have capacity for more than 120 delegates a day. Practical teaching areas and classrooms have been brought together on a site intended to support contractors working across London, Essex and the South East.
The premises replace Citrus’s former 15,000 sq ft Brentwood operation, increasing reported floorspace by more than four times. The company has refurbished the exterior, reorganised internal offices and teaching areas, and provided new delegate facilities. More than £2m has been invested across the move and redevelopment, rather than reported as the price of a standalone building contract. The enlarged footprint is intended to accommodate several types of practical course alongside conventional teaching and assessment rooms.
Outdoor training areas support plant operation, lifting-related exercises, and street works activities, while climate-controlled classrooms provide space for theory and safety instruction. A dedicated confined space simulator allows controlled practice of entry procedures and associated safety arrangements. The physical separation of training activities permits different groups to work with equipment and simulated tasks without using ordinary classroom space for operations that need a larger, managed area.
The centre’s programme spans plant operations, crane and lifting work, New Roads and Street Works, electrical training, confined spaces, and site safety. Each discipline has its own equipment, supervision and assessment requirements. A training area suited to lifting operations needs room for machinery and controlled load movement, while street works instruction is concerned with safe systems around excavations, signs and temporary traffic arrangements. Citrus has built the enlarged premises around those distinct practical requirements rather than a single general-purpose teaching hall.
Street works courses are relevant to operatives and supervisors undertaking utility installation, road maintenance, and infrastructure repairs. Training commonly addresses signing, lighting and guarding as well as the practical management of work in the highway. Citrus advertises Dagenham course dates for this field, providing evidence that the new location is already part of its delivery network. Availability depends on the specific qualification and course calendar; the larger premises do not alter the requirements attached to individual awards.
Confined space instruction combines decisions about access, atmosphere, rescue arrangements, and communication with the practical actions needed during a controlled entry. Citrus has installed a simulator for that work, giving trainers a dedicated area in which procedures can be demonstrated and assessed. The training activity is necessarily managed rather than equivalent to a live site hazard. The operator has not given separate simultaneous delegate capacities for each specialist area, so its stated 120-plus daily capacity refers to the centre as a whole.
The enlarged site also provides for electrical and lifting disciplines, where safe use of equipment and task preparation require more than classroom explanation. Practical sessions may involve equipment checks, operating controls and coordination between people carrying out and supervising an exercise. The type of installation and assessment depends on the course being delivered. Locating several facilities at the same centre offers more flexibility to organise those programmes, particularly for employers bringing staff in for multi-day qualifications.
Paul Tebbutt, Citrus Training’s executive director, described the Dagenham investment as an expansion of capacity and flexibility for customers across London and the South East. He also linked the development to the company’s longer-term growth plans. The centre replaces a smaller regional operation while providing additional practical areas, an arrangement intended to increase the number of course types and delegates it can accommodate without requiring employers to use separate premises for every activity.
The company says the site is approximately a six-minute walk from Chadwell Heath station on the Elizabeth line. On-site parking and electric vehicle charging are also provided. Access by rail and road makes the centre viable for delegates attending single-day courses or longer programmes, including workers travelling from different construction sites. The travel arrangements complement the larger teaching capacity, although booked attendance will depend on the schedule of individual courses and instructors.
Construction, civil engineering, utilities, highways, and environmental services all feature in the training provision. Their workers need different combinations of task-specific competence and general safety knowledge, from plant operation to temporary road works and confined space procedures. The Dagenham investment increases the company’s ability to accommodate those activities in one location. It does not change statutory duties on contractors to assess competence and make sure workers receive training appropriate to the operations they perform.
Citrus already maintains a broader training network, with provision in Northamptonshire and previous investment in Leeds. Its larger London-area base gives the network another practical facility rather than simply another classroom address. Bringing training equipment, simulation space and teaching rooms together makes it possible to run practical and theoretical elements of a programme at the same centre, subject to course availability and the required assessment arrangements.
The Dagenham hub is now open, with 63,600 sq ft of space and stated capacity for more than 120 delegates daily. Its performance can be assessed through the programmes delivered and use of the new practical areas rather than through floorspace alone. The confirmed investment gives Citrus a substantially larger regional base for construction and infrastructure training as its new course calendar develops.
