HSE praises UK concrete products industry at Precast 2013

Sustainability and health and safety achievements highlighted at recent precast concrete event

BRITISH Precast, the trade federation for the UK concrete products industry, has announced that its annual exhibition, which took place on Thursday 23 May at King Power Stadium, Leicester, was yet another huge success. With 55 trade stands and information booths, dozens of seminar presentations and more than 400 delegates in attendance, Precast 2013 was the biggest event staged by British Precast.

Among the highlights during the conference/exhibition were keynote speeches and award presentations by Judith Hackitt, chair of the Health and Safety Executive, together with Patrick Declerck, president of the European Precast Federation BIBM. 

The event also saw the launch of the new Code of Practice for the Safe Installation of Precast Concrete Flooring and Associated Components by the Precast Flooring Federation with signing pledges by members. 

Meanwhile, the main award winners included: Glenn Regan (Forticrete), Stephen Carr (Spiroll Precast Services), Darren Palmer (CEMEX) and Ian Kenning (CPM Group) for their Outstanding Contribution to Health and Safety; Hanson Forpave picked up the Health & Safety Award; and Hanson Building Products received the Sustainability Award. 

With continuing growth in the number of cyclists on the roads, there were safety demonstrations at the event showing how CEMEX UK have undertaken vehicle configurations to take into account of vulnerable road users, while speed restrictor systems were presented by Linde fork lift trucks. 

One of the major challenges facing the concrete products sector is improving its health and safety performance further, along with its supply chain. Judith Hackitt commended the impressive progress made so far and welcomed the ongoing initiatives of British Precast. 

‘What I see is an industry that’s demonstrating leadership, management commitment and the use of appropriate assessment tools to drive continuous improvement,’ she said. ‘The 68% reduction in injury rates since the initiative began in 2001 is very impressive…I’m sure the industry is investing more hard work and commitment in order to meet the new targets that have been set – a 50% reduction in lost time injuries for employees and contractors by 2015.’