The summit will bring together representatives from national and local government together with contractors from the maintenance and major project communities, as well as other stakeholders. The health and safety challenge faced by delegates will be illustrated through a series of addresses by keynote speakers which will include some of the recent best practices developed to reduce injury to road workers.
Through this collaborative approach the summit aims to foster relationships between parties that have not shared or learnt the lessons from each other before, and raise the standards of highways health and safety nationally.
Richard Hemingway, chair of the event’s steering group, said: “A significant proportion of the deaths and injuries on our roads occur at roadworks; many of them are preventable.
“It is the responsibility of us all, but especially senior management, to address the issues. Whether we work in government or industry we will all be judged on our collective actions to secure a radical improvement and by the results we achieve. Therefore, together we need to address the leadership and behavioural challenges necessary to drive a step change improvement in safety performance at roadworks, on both the local and strategic networks.”
Keynote speakers at the event include:
- Andrew Jones MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport
- Peter Baker, HSE chief inspector for construction
- Lee Rushbrooke, chief executive of Colas
- Mike Ashworth, strategic director Derbyshire CC and ADEPT transport board chair.
In order to achieve the purpose of the summit, six key objectives will be addressed through separate breakout sessions. The objectives aim to introduce consistency and ensure that the UK highways industry steps up to the health and safety challenge and will become part of a highways industry health and safety action plan towards 2025.
Highways Magazine is acting as a media partner for the event and will have a special focus on road worker safety in the October 2015 issue.
You can find out more information about the event here.