Daily News
Safety is golden for Keepmoat Homes
Keepmoat Homes’ drive to improve health and safety in the workplace has been rewarded with a prestigious Gold RoSPA Award.
The company, which is building in Blaydon, Bowburn, Brandon, Burnhope, Consett, Crook, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Lambton, North Ormesby, Sherburn Hill, Stockton, Thornaby, Wallsend and West Rainton also recently gained OHSAS 18001 - the internationally recognised benchmark for occupational health and safety management systems.
With further sites in the Midlands, Yorkshire and North West of England, Keepmoat Homes is one of just a handful of construction companies to achieve this standard and the first volume house builder listed on the British Standards Institute web site.
These accreditations are reward for the implementation of a rigorous health and safety programme, designed to develop a safety culture to which everyone is committed - from boardroom to building site.
At the presentation ceremony in Birmingham, RoSPA Awards Manager, David Rawlins, said: “Keepmoat Homes has shown a commitment to protecting the health and well-being of its employees and others. Organisations which do this deserve to have such dedication recognised.
As well as good ethical and legal reasons for good health and safety management, there is also a strong business case and we are delighted to publicly honour organisations which have shown a genuine commitment to improve performance in this area.”
Said Keepmoat Homes’ Safety Manager, William Cameron: “This is a fantastic achievement and also recognition of a great deal of hard work not just by our staff but also our sub contractors – about 600 people in all.
“It acknowledges that we have developed a strong and positive safety culture where people take individual and collective responsibility for working safely. It also endorses the robust safety management systems which we have developed to ensure this safety culture becomes embedded in the company.”
Programmes established by Keepmoat Homes include regular site safety inspections and safety audits, tool box talks for site personnel and a reward scheme for safety innovations.