EMPLOYERS have been urged to do more training as Kent’s newest university cranks up its services to business.

The issue of workforce skills, so critical to the county’s future prosperity, is moving up the agenda, with training chiefs warning that unless firms play a more active role, the county will continue to be the regional laggard.

Canterbury Christ Church University – it was allowed to drop its college name from August 1 – has set up an enterprise centre at its Harbledown site to encourage knowledge transfer to companies.

Founded as a teacher training college in 1962 with just 67 students, the £75 million a year institution with 1,600 staff and 10,000 students joins the Universities of Kent and Greenwich as the county’s third university.

A fourth, dedicated to creative skills, could be established next year following a partnership between Kent and Surrey institutes of art and design.

Former principal and now vice-chancellor Professor Michael Wright – the Archbishop of Canterbury is chancellor – said the new status was good news for business.

It would mean more graduates staying in the county, working for local firms, setting up their own enterprises, and being helped by university links with enterprise hubs and innovation centres.

But business needed to do more. "If the business levers are not pulled to create business opportunities here, all our efforts will only be limited," said Prof Wright.

The skills issue was critical, he added, and he felt it was moving in the right direction. "We are part of the skills agenda," he said. "The problems are being addressed but we are playing a long game."

As for business involvement, he added: "All universities need more engagement."

Meanwhile, Tony Allen, skills director with the Learning & Skills Council Kent and Medway (LSC), called on employers to address a looming shortage of construction workers.

The LSC was investing £13million a year, including new vocational centres for 14 to16 year olds, but more had to be done.

The need was urgent because of the huge building programme planned for Kent and the prospect of construction projects for the Olympic Games sucking skills out of the county.

He said the county would need 3,000 people a year over the next 10 years to come out of training. But present annual output was less than a thousand.

"In our view, the skills shortage is right across the board," he said. In particular, there was an urgent need for more apprentices.

"But one of our challenges is getting employers to buy into that. We do need to get industry within the construction sector to take up the challenge and invest more in training their own people.

"Within five years, once all the construction really starts to kick off, particularly in north Kent and Ashford, then we and the industry have to be attracting a lot more people into it.

"We have to have revolutionised the way we train these young people, and much of it must be employer-based. We have to persuade employers this is the right thing to do."

He added: "I wouldn’t use the word crisis but it is definitely a problem."

Failure to generate enough skilled people would have a detrimental effect on the economy of Kent.

Employers would be forced to look abroad for labour and that would pose language problems and inflate costs. Mr Allen’s message to employers was: "Grow your own."