I CANNOT believe how Dudley and Stourbridge colleges have grown, I would like to know how many new students they will be accepting this year.

Looking at the building trade over the years there was all way a new lot of school leaver entering the building trade, but over the last 10 - 15 years you can see the age gap opening up.

But then you see how they are being trained on these apprenticeships – it is a joke.

We have had a gang of brick-layers on one of my site with their NVQs and they can’t lay bricks – carpenters who can’t hang a door.

These students need to be trained right in the first place, because they are our future.

John Nicklin Lower Gornal