State-of-the-art simulators will help train the heavy plant operators of the future after a £1.2m investment at a west Norfolk centre.

The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has installed 16 of the machines at its Bircham Newton headquarters, after securing £450,000 of funding from the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Local Enterprise Partnership.

The simulators will be used to train apprentices and trainees in a wide-range of plant machinery, including excavators, cranes, crawler dozers, telehandlers, tractors and dumper trucks.

The technology reduces health and safety risks, as well as emissions, and monitors learners' progress electronically.

Graham McPhail, head of education and training at CITB, said: 'This is the first large-scale investment into plant simulator technology anywhere in the UK.

'New methods of technology are playing an increasingly important role in construction and this investment will help us modernise the way we train. It is really pleasing to see the added value the simulators provide to all our learners. I am very grateful to the LEP for their support in helping this to happen.

'CITB is committed to ensuring the right training is in place to produce the highly-skilled workforce required in our industry.'

The simulators offer environmental benefits by reducing the amount of carbon emissions associated with traditional plant machinery, and allow for modern construction scenarios that cannot be replicated in a typical real-life training session.

The investment comes as the CITB's latest skills forecast shows the need for 5,000 plant operators over the next five years.

Josh Missin, a 24-year-old plant apprentice from Wisbech who works with plant-hire firm Mervyn Lambert, has been training on the simulators.

He said: 'The simulators are great. As someone who had never used any form of plant machinery before, I was quite nervous before doing so. However, the simulators allowed me to quickly learn how certain controls worked, which meant I felt much more confident when using the machines in real life.

'They are also good when bad weather would stop us from using the real machines, as you don't feel like you've lost a day's work.'