Base To Train Workforce For London's Newest Neighbourhood

KUALA LUMPUR, July 18 (Bernama) -- The shareholders of London's Battersea Power Station project has launched a skill training centre to encourage residents to consider a career in retail, hospitality, estate management, leisure or business there upon its completion. Battersea Project Holding Company Ltd chairman Johan Ariffin said the Battersea Academy of Skills Excellence (BASE) offered courses tailored to the employers’ specific needs while building on their own in-house training programmes. He said BASE, London's newest neighbourhood, would help attract, grow and retain local talents through a service excellence skills programme. "Working with BASE is an embedded team from Wandsworth Council’s Work Match service together with Lambeth Working, Battersea Power Station’s retailers, hotels, restaurants, office tenants and estate management contractors," he said in a statement. Meanwhile, BASE director Michelle Dawson said employment partners together with his team are working together to improve customer service standards across the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors. The service excellence programme will equip people working at the Battersea Power Station with exceptional skills as they build their careers, he added. Recruitment for the first jobs in concierge, security, landscaping, building management, retail, and food and beverage is expected to start in August 2016, ahead of the first residents moving into Circus West in stages starting later this year. Circus West is expected to provide 300 jobs, with thousands more jobs to be created by the wide mix of uses planned for the Power Station, Electric Boulevard and future phases. The Battersea Power Station site is owned by a consortium of Malaysian investors, comprising SP Setia Bhd, Sime Darby Property Bhd and the Employees Provident Fund. -- BERNAMA