A-one+ achieves four million hours of safe working

Highways service provider A-one+ has reached the milestone of one thousand days and four million working hours without a reportable accident in Area 12.

The company has a long standing commitment to health, safety and welfare, underpinned by the company value of ‘always putting safety first’. The shared joint venture between CH2M, Colas and Costain covers three areas of the strategic road network on behalf of Highways England, North East, East Midlands and Yorkshire and Humber.

The Yorkshire and Humber team has achieved this result by retaining a zero accident frequency rate (AFR) of one thousand days in mid-January and then topping that by reaching four million working hours less than two weeks later.

Employee survey results helped shape a health and safety strategy and new ways of working have been introduced, including the implementation of an improved strategy and action plan.

All employees attend cultural behavioural safety training to cultivate understanding and personal responsibility and staff briefing processes have been redesigned to capture near miss intelligence and are used as an opportunity for prevention. In addition there is a health and wellbeing programme for staff.

In addition to this, A-one+ extends its safety expertise to collaborate with local authorities providing network inductions to contractors and their employees for work sites.

Brian Statham, A-one+ Area 12 general manager, said: “It is imperative for our company and the work we do to have strong health and safety practices in place and while it is fantastic to reach this landmark the main reward is the safety of our road workers and ensuring we provide the safest working environment possible.”

Roger Wantling, service delivery team leader at Highways England, added: “I am so proud of this achievement. The greatest pleasure from such an announcement is that it means all our front line troops, who work so hard to keep our network safe and sustainable, are going home safe and sound every day.”