Cat & Genny Training in Gloucester

Need CAT & Genny training in Gloucester for employees who are responsible for locating underground services before excavation or other ground-disturbing work begins?

Vally Plant Training delivers practical CAT & Genny training, cable avoidance training and underground service detection training throughout Gloucester and the surrounding Gloucestershire area.

For local employers, training can be delivered directly at a suitable workplace or construction site. This is particularly useful for groundworks, civil engineering, drainage and utilities companies with several employees who need the same training without losing unnecessary time travelling away from the job.

We are also unusually convenient for individuals looking for CAT & Genny training near Gloucester. Our dedicated training centre is in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, giving Gloucester candidates the option of travelling to us when workplace delivery isn’t practical.

The course teaches candidates how to use a Cable Avoidance Tool (CAT scanner) and Signal Generator (Genny) as part of a planned approach to locating buried services. It also addresses the limitations of locating equipment and why a scan must never be treated as a guarantee that the ground is clear.

HSE guidance HSG47 – Avoiding Danger from Underground Services identifies three basic elements of safe excavation: planning the work, locating and identifying buried services, and safe excavation.

CAT & Genny training with Vally Plant Training is available through Novice and Refresher routes. We do not offer an Experienced Worker Test for CAT & Genny.

For complete national course information, visit our NPORS CAT & Genny Training Course.

Is CAT & Genny training relevant to your job?

If your work involves breaking ground where buried services could be present, cable avoidance needs to be considered before excavation begins.

That doesn’t only mean large construction projects.

A relatively small excavation for drainage, ducting, fencing, foundations, utilities or maintenance can still expose workers to buried electricity cables, gas pipes and other services.

Our Gloucester CAT & Genny course is suitable for people including:

• Groundworkers
• Excavator operators
• Utility operatives
• Drainage teams
• Civil engineering workers
• Highway contractors
• Telecommunications teams
• Site engineers
• Construction workers
• Maintenance personnel
• Landscapers carrying out excavation
• Supervisors responsible for groundworks

The important question is not simply “Do we own a CAT scanner?”

It’s whether the person using it understands how to carry out a meaningful search, when to use the Genny, what the indications mean and where the equipment’s limitations begin.

Why Gloucester companies use Vally Plant Training

Gloucester is one of our core training areas, so local businesses have two practical options.

Where a company has several employees requiring training and suitable facilities are available, we can provide CAT & Genny training at the customer’s Gloucester site.

Alternatively, candidates can travel to our dedicated training centre in Tewkesbury.

That flexibility can be particularly useful for companies with a mixture of training requirements. Groundworks businesses often need competence across several activities rather than a single course in isolation.

Employees may require CAT & Genny training alongside:

• Excavator training
• Dumper training
• Ride-on roller training
• Plant marshal training
• Other plant operator categories

Vally Plant Training is a family-run provider established in 2014. We are an NPORS Approved Training Provider and CITB Training Provider Network Member, delivering training directly to employers and operators.

For Gloucester businesses, that means you can discuss the actual workforce requirement with the company delivering the training rather than booking through an intermediary.

Which CAT & Genny course do I need?

There are two routes available: Novice and Refresher.

CAT & Genny is different from many of our plant machinery categories because there is no Experienced Worker Test route.

Novice CAT & Genny training

Novice training is for candidates who don’t hold the suitable previous recognised CAT & Genny training needed for the refresher route.

That includes people who are completely new to cable avoidance equipment, but it can also include workers who have picked up informal experience on site without ever completing recognised training.

Being able to switch a CAT on isn’t the same as understanding how to conduct a systematic underground service search.

Novice candidates learn the process from the beginning, including:

equipment checks • locating modes • Signal Generator use • systematic searching • service tracing • interpreting indications • equipment limitations • underground service hazards

If you’re new to formal training, read our NPORS Novice Training Guide.

CAT & Genny refresher training

Refresher training is intended for candidates who have already completed suitable recognised training and need to update or renew their knowledge.

It may be appropriate where:

• A CAT & Genny certificate has expired
• Certification is approaching renewal
• The employee hasn’t used the equipment regularly
• An employer requires updated training
• Knowledge and practical technique need refreshing
• Recognised accredited certification was previously obtained from another awarding body

If you’re unsure whether your previous certificate qualifies, contact Vally Plant Training before booking.

Read our NPORS Refresher Training Guide for further information about refresher training.

What does CAT & Genny training cover?

A useful CAT & Genny course needs to teach more than the controls on the equipment.

Candidates need to understand where cable avoidance fits into the overall excavation process.

Training can include:

• Responsibilities when working near buried services
• Hazards associated with underground utilities
• HSG47 principles
• Understanding service information and drawings
• Pre-use equipment checks
• CAT controls and operating modes
• Signal Generator / Genny operation
• Passive locating methods
• Active locating techniques
• Systematic scanning
• Tracing suspected service routes
• Interpreting locator responses
• Marking detected services
• Equipment limitations
• Re-scanning during excavation
• Safe excavation principles
• Actions when information doesn’t agree

The practical element allows candidates to use the equipment rather than learning cable avoidance purely from theory.

HSG47 – planning comes before digging

The Health and Safety Executive’s HSG47 – Avoiding Danger from Underground Services is important because it places cable avoidance equipment within a much bigger safety process.

HSG47 is aimed at people commissioning, planning, managing and carrying out work on or near underground services and identifies three basic elements of a safe system of work:

1. Planning the work
2. Locating and identifying buried services
3. Safe excavation

That sequence matters.

Turning up at an excavation with a CAT scanner doesn’t replace planning.

Likewise, detecting and marking a service doesn’t remove the need to excavate carefully.

Our Working Near Underground Services Guide provides further practical guidance for operators and employers.

What can be buried underneath a Gloucester worksite?

Workers sometimes associate cable avoidance purely with electricity.

The underground environment can be considerably more complicated.

Depending on the site, buried services can include:

• High and low-voltage electricity cables
• Gas services
• Water mains
• Telecommunications
• Fibre networks
• Drainage and sewer systems
• Street lighting supplies
• Traffic-system cabling
• Private electrical supplies
• Services associated with industrial premises

Some may be easier to detect than others.

That’s one reason the course places emphasis on equipment limitations rather than creating false confidence that every underground service will always appear during a scan.

CAT scanner and Genny – why use both?

The CAT and Genny perform related but different functions.

A Cable Avoidance Tool can detect suitable signals associated with buried services.

The Signal Generator – commonly called the Genny – can be used to apply a detectable signal to a suitable service, helping the operator trace its route using compatible locating equipment.

Candidates need to understand when active locating techniques may provide useful additional information instead of relying solely on whatever passive signals happen to be present.

A competent survey is therefore more than walking over the proposed excavation once in a single mode.

Why “nothing detected” doesn’t mean “nothing there”

This is one of the most important lessons for anyone involved in groundworks.

No locator response is not proof that the ground contains no services.

The ability to detect a buried service can depend on the type of service, its material, signal availability, depth, surrounding services, site conditions and the method being used.

That means the survey needs to be considered alongside:

service plans + site information + visual clues + locating equipment + safe excavation controls

A worker who understands those limitations is far less likely to develop false confidence from a clear screen or lack of audible response.

For further information, see our Working Near Underground Services Guide.

What if the CAT scan doesn’t match the service drawing?

This is where training and judgement become particularly important.

Service drawings provide valuable information, but workers should not assume that every buried utility will be exactly where a plan appears to show it.

If the physical survey and available service information don’t agree, that discrepancy needs to be taken seriously.

The answer isn’t to choose whichever result is more convenient and start digging.

Work may need to be reassessed and additional investigation carried out before excavation proceeds.

This is also why cable avoidance should be part of a planned safe system of work, rather than treated as a stand-alone box-ticking exercise immediately before the excavator starts.

CAT & Genny training for Gloucester excavator operators

A lot of demand for cable avoidance training comes from businesses that also operate excavators.

There is an obvious connection between the two activities, but the competencies remain separate.

An operator may hold an NPORS excavator qualification and still need appropriate training before being responsible for locating underground services.

Likewise, completing a CAT & Genny course doesn’t qualify someone to operate an excavator.

If your employees need both, visit our 360 Excavator Training Course. Vally Plant Training provides excavator training at its Tewkesbury centre and on suitable customer sites.

Cable avoidance before mechanical excavation

Once a service has been located, the information needs to be communicated to the people carrying out the work.

That may include:

• Excavator operators
• Groundworkers
• Supervisors
• Banksmen
• Site management
• Subcontractors

Service markings need to remain meaningful and the excavation method must reflect the risks identified.

A painted line on the ground should never be treated as permission to drive an excavator bucket straight up to a suspected service.

Locating the service is one stage. Excavating safely around it is another.

Re-scanning shouldn’t be forgotten

A CAT survey is often thought of as something that happens once before excavation starts.

In reality, the work area changes as excavation progresses.

Ground is removed, previously inaccessible areas become exposed and additional information may become available.

Re-scanning can therefore help maintain awareness of the suspected service route as work develops.

This is particularly important where excavation extends beyond the original work area or where site conditions create uncertainty about the route of a service.

CAT & Genny training and permit-to-dig procedures

Many construction and civil engineering companies control excavation through a permit-to-dig system.

CAT & Genny training can support that process, but it does not replace it.

A permit system may bring together information including service drawings, risk assessments, locating results, markings, excavation methods and authorisation to begin work.

The CAT & Genny user’s role is to provide reliable information from the locating process and understand the limitations of that information.

The wider excavation controls remain important throughout the job.

On-site CAT & Genny training in Gloucester

For businesses with several candidates, we can provide on-site CAT & Genny training across Gloucester and surrounding Gloucestershire locations, subject to suitable equipment and facilities.

This can be particularly useful for contractors operating around:

Gloucester • Quedgeley • Hardwicke • Brockworth • Churchdown • Hucclecote • Innsworth • Barnwood and surrounding areas

On-site delivery can reduce employee travel and allow several members of the workforce to complete training together.

It can also be useful where a Gloucester business needs multiple courses. If employees require excavator, dumper, roller or other plant training as well, tell us the full requirement when requesting a quotation.

Training near Gloucester at our Tewkesbury centre

Gloucester candidates are also well placed to use our dedicated Tewkesbury plant training centre.

This gives individuals and smaller businesses an alternative when they don’t have enough candidates, equipment or suitable facilities to justify an on-site course.

The centre is located at Newton Farm Business Park, Ashchurch, Tewkesbury, close to Junction 9 of the M5.

Centre-based training is particularly suitable for:

• Individuals
• Self-employed workers
• Single employees
• Smaller Gloucester businesses
• Candidates without suitable workplace equipment
• People requiring refresher training
• Candidates who prefer a published centre price

Parking is available, and Ashchurch for Tewkesbury railway station is approximately five minutes’ walk from the centre.

On-site training requirements

For CAT & Genny training at your Gloucester workplace, the site must be suitable for safe and effective training.

Depending on the course arrangements, requirements can include:

• Suitable CAT & Genny equipment
• Relevant manufacturer’s instructions
• Safe practical training area
• Suitable service-locating opportunities
• Risk assessments
• Method statements where applicable
• Suitable theory/welfare facilities
• Candidate photo identification
• Appropriate PPE

Our site requirements guidance explains the importance of suitable facilities, documentation and safe practical areas when plant training is delivered at a customer’s premises.

Read our Customer Site Requirements for Plant Operator Training before arranging workplace delivery.

CAT & Genny training prices for Gloucester

There are two different pricing situations depending on where training takes place.

Current Tewkesbury training centre prices start from:

NPORS Novice CAT & Genny Training – From £280 + VAT per person

NPORS Refresher CAT & Genny Training – From £280 + VAT per person

NPORS Card & Registration – £45 + VAT per person

These published prices relate to training at our Tewkesbury centre.

For on-site CAT & Genny training in Gloucester, we provide a quotation based on the actual workforce requirement.

Factors can include:

• Number of candidates
• Gloucester site location
• Travel
• Novice or refresher requirements
• Equipment available
• Certification route
• Other courses required

Where several employees need training, ask about multiple-candidate or multi-course bookings.

Assessment and certification

Candidates are assessed on both their practical use of the cable avoidance equipment and their understanding of safe underground service locating.

They need to demonstrate more than the ability to operate the controls.

Assessment considers whether candidates can use the equipment appropriately, interpret the information it provides and recognise circumstances where they cannot safely rely on a simple scan result.

NPORS certification is available following successful completion of the appropriate NPORS course and assessment.

In-house CAT & Genny certification may also be available where appropriate. Acceptance of in-house certification depends on the employer, client, principal contractor, site requirements and insurer and should not be confused with NPORS certification.

For complete course and certification details, visit our NPORS CAT & Genny Training Course.

CITB funding for Gloucester businesses

Vally Plant Training is a CITB Training Provider Network Member.

Eligible CITB-registered employers may be able to access funding towards qualifying training, subject to current CITB eligibility and funding rules.

If you’re arranging training for a Gloucester or Gloucestershire workforce, tell us whether the company is CITB registered when requesting a quotation.

Related training for Gloucester groundworks teams

Related CAT & Genny and underground services guides

Book CAT & Genny training in Gloucester