ISAR3, 2a Parkwood Close, Plymouth (2025)

25/11/2025

ISAR3 has officially qualified 17 women as Rescue 3 Europe Rope Rescue Operator Instructors — the first cohort of the Breaking Boundaries initiative.

Born from an early conversation with Prusik Rescue, the programme delivered 360 training days, 80 instructor days, and free Rescue 3 Europe registrations. The result: a new wave of skilled, confident women stepping into a space long dominated by men.

With more than 150 applicants in the first week, Breaking Boundaries is now set for major growth, with additional cohorts planned for 2026, new CPD opportunities, and future technician-level training.

The long-term vision is bold: a fully independent, women-led organisation shaping the future of technical rope rescue.

This milestone is powered by partnership — and by the 17 women who showed extraordinary commitment, humour, and courage.

Breaking Boundaries is only just getting started.

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21/11/2025

Good luck all Breaking Boundaries 2025 candidates, on your RRO instructor assessment weekend!

21/11/2025

A Busy (and Cold!) Week for Our Occupational Water Safety Training Team

It’s been a full-on week for the Occupational Water Safety Training Team, travelling across the UK in cold and snowy conditions. Despite the weather, they’ve continued to demonstrate to clients why hands-on occupational water safety training is essential—and why getting into the water to gain real-world experience is always worth it on training!

Here, a group at the Northampton White Water Centre are completing the practical element of their 2-day Rescue 3 Europe, DEFRA-compliant Safe Working in Water course.

Well done to everyone involved—and just as well we equip our students with only the very best kit available.
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21/11/2025

This week, we delivered the Rescue 3 Europe Confined Space Entry and Rescue – Low & Medium Risk (CSERLM) course at our Plymouth training centre.

Equivalent in level to City & Guilds 6160-02 or 6160-09, the CSERLM programme includes enhanced rescue, stretcher handling and rigging components, offering a more comprehensive practical skillset than the standard C&G pathway.
As providers of both schemes, we can help you choose the best fit for your team’s requirements and deliver training anywhere in the UK.

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21/11/2025

Our mobile double-stack confined space and working-at-height training containers returned home last night after four months on a client site, where they supported a series of Rescue 3 Europe Confined Space Operator courses.

This highly flexible rig is ideal for multi-course deployments on large projects or for clients who need to run multiple training sessions. Far superior to the typical “crawl-through” mobile trailers that have become the industry norm, these robust, purpose-built units offer height, complexity, realism, and versatility—perfect for organisations that require more than a simple tick-box qualification.

21/11/2025

This week, ISAR3 had the privilege of supporting the Severn Area Rescue Association (SARA) as their cohort of Rescue 3 Europe Instructors completed their biennial qualification updates.

As part of Rescue 3’s structured development process, all instructors refresh their skills every two years to ensure consistently high standards across the programme. Over two productive days, our R3 Instructor Trainer delivered updates for both the Rope Rescue Technician Instructors and the Swiftwater Rescue Technician Instructors.

Fantastic engagement and insightful discussions throughout—SARA’s instructors continue to demonstrate real commitment to developing their team’s technical capability.

19/11/2025

At Severn Area Rescue Association (SARA) today to deliver a Rescue 3 Rope Rescue Technician Instructor practical update to their cohort or instructors. We took them through the original pathway from RRO to RRTi so looking forward to catching up with some old friends. The Severn at Benchley under the olds suspension bridge is looking cold and unwelcoming this morning…..

14/11/2025

Giving Credit Where It’s Due

I want to take a moment to acknowledge the great work Reax are doing to push our industry forward. We’ve been running ACXs in the UK for several years now as early adopters—bringing in the first two RCXs for the Rescue Team on HPC.

One of our ongoing challenges has been the limited options for annual servicing, with previous suppliers taking weeks to turn units around despite the high demand across our projects.

Keith and the team at Reax have truly raised the bar. Their partnership with Skylotec to develop their powered ascender offering is impressive, and their service has been outstanding. Our unit was collected from our operational base on Monday and returned today—an exceptional turnaround.

Well done to the entire Reax team, and thank you. We won’t be going anywhere else from here on.

14/11/2025

What’s Steve the trainer been having for lunch?

This week’s City & Guilds Level 2 Award in Entrant and Entry Controller for Confined Spaces (Medium Risk) (6160-09) included hands-on practice in selecting, inspecting, and using Emergency Escape Breathing Apparatus (EEBA).

Here, delegates are getting to grips with the Dräger 15-minute constant-flow CF15 set. It always sparks an important conversation:

👉 Do your teams understand the difference between these “hood” escape sets and the positive-pressure, breathe-on-demand alternatives?
👉 Can your planners confidently specify the right escape set for the task, duration, skills, and face-fit status of your entrants?

Steve, one of our longest-serving and most experienced trainers, is busy this week delivering back-to-back City and Guilds confined space courses from the 6160 range here at our training base in Plymouth. We can bring any city and Guilds / Rescue 3 confined space course to you anywhere in the UK with our mobile training rig if you have a need.

Getting this right makes all the difference in a real emergency.

14/11/2025

Focus on the basic skills!

That’s one of the core messages in our occupational water safety courses. This week, as in most weeks, we’re delivering Rescue 3 accredited Working Near Water and Working in Water training to clients across Scotland, the North East, Wales, the Midlands and Devon.

Although it’s never presented as a deliberate act, delegates need to recognise how even a gentle flow rate can dramatically change risk when an obstacle is present in the water. This understanding is vital for on-scene risk assessments, for knowing when and where it is safe to wade (and when it is not), and for appreciating how challenging—sometimes impossible—self-recovery from objects or strainers can be, even in relatively low-energy water.

This part of the course consistently opens eyes to the real-world implications of the decisions staff make when working around water and always sparks lively, informed discussion.

It’s one of the key differences between attending a generic flood-based training syllabus (such as the DEFRA course syllabus) and completing a carefully curated programme designed specifically for occupational workers—delivered by a team with 25 years of experience leading the way in occupational water safety training.

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13/11/2025

Wow! We’ve just been awarded Third Place in the HPC 2025 Excellence Awards for Outstanding Supplier Partnership — and I couldn’t be prouder.

A huge shout-out to our delivery team and trainers who have been supporting this incredible project. Working alongside Framatome on the primary circuit of the nuclear reactor has been nothing short of inspiring. The leadership, the safety culture, and the sheer level of engineering excellence on this project are genuinely world-class.

For a micro-business of just 25 people, it’s humbling to not only be welcomed on site as a supplier, but to stand as a finalist among such exceptional organisations. This recognition reflects our team’s expertise, service culture, and deep commitment to reducing risk for our client and the wider project.

With more than 1,200 nominees across all categories, I’m sure the judging wasn’t easy — which makes this acknowledgement even more meaningful.

A heartfelt thank you to Framatome for their sponsorship and continued support, and to the senior HPC team whose passion for the project, for excellence, and above all for safety, is unmistakable. These aren’t just words — this project truly lives its values.

12/11/2025

Another busy week at ISAR3

It feels like every week’s a full one lately — and we wouldn’t have it any other way!
This week our teams have been out across the UK with projects in Wales, the North East, Scotland and the Home Counties, providing water access, safety standby, and floating pontoons to support bridge inspections — our bread and butter work.
At the same time our job planners are continuing bridge recces for upcoming projects into 2026.

Our safety and rigging teams have just returned from a week with the Environment Agency at Kielder, helping with fish trapping operations, while our IRATA rope access team is supporting the prison estates with on going needs (we can’t say where!).

We’re also providing confined space rescue and entry support at HPC Nuclear Reactor 1 build with specialist skills and equipment to facilitate their demanding work.

On the training front, it’s all go with both Rescue 3 & City & Guilds courses being delivered. Water safety (DEFRA Aligned) CS Medium & High Risk confined space courses, HART rope rescue refreshers, and we are finally dismantling our double-stack confined space rig on site after a long client hire. It will be good to get her home for some maintenance and a refresh.

Tonight we’re proud to be finalists at the HPC Nuclear Build Annual Awards for Subcontractor of the Year – best of luck to all nominees!

And tomorrow, we’ll be catching up with friends and clients at the UKRO Fire Service Rope Rescue Competition in Minehead.

Oh, and we’ve just released our new Confined Space Prosecutions Report, analysing 10 years of UK incidents — download your free copy from our website (no email required!).

ISAR3

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