Hope Construction Materials recognised for impressive health and safety performance

The UK’s Hope Construction Materials has been recognised for its health and safety efforts, picking up the prestigious John Crabbe Award at the Mineral Products Association’s Health and Safety Conference and Awards 2014. Hope Construction Materials’ founder and Chairman, Amit Bhatia, was presented with the trophy at an awards ceremony in London on 4 November.

Hope received the MPA award just one day after reaching a new health and safety milestone – 300 days without an LTI to any of Hope’s employees, or business partners.

To be eligible for the John Crabbe Award, Hope had to demonstrate excellence in four areas:

1. Leadership and engagement.
2. Worker involvement.
3. Management of contractors.
4. Health, stress and wellbeing.

A leading independent supplier of cement, concrete and aggregates, Hope Construction Materials was formed in early 2013 following the acquisition of 170 sites from other companies. Hope therefore not only delivered an impressive safety performance, but did so during a period of major change.

Last year, Hope actively encouraged staff to take part in health and safety improvement schemes, resulting in the development of a number of initiatives, such as the ‘Welcome Intervention’ campaign and the ‘Health and Wellbeing Forum’.

“Congratulations to Hope Construction Materials on a safety performance that would be impressive for any company, let alone a business less than two years old that’s still in the early stages of development. On behalf of the MPA we applaud the safety spirit and ambition of everyone at Hope and wish them well for the future,” said Nigel Jackson, Chief Executive of the MPA.

“The journey towards safety excellence is long, and not always straightforward, but every step along that journey is an important one. Today’s success is a reflection of our progress on that journey and I am immensely proud of each and every one of my colleagues. I look forward to the next milestone on our journey,” commented Amit Bhatia, founder and Chairman of Hope Construction Materials.

“Our approach to health and safety has been behavioural based from the beginning. What we really focused on was the interdependency of all our people so they look out for each other,” added Chris Plant, Chief Executive Officer of Hope Construction Materials. “At Hope we believe it’s the duty of every manager to demonstrate visible leadership and to be an advocate for health and safety, never to walk past an incident and to always address things in their sphere of business. Equally however, it is the duty of every one of my colleagues to make welcome interventions to prevent hazards from turning into incidents.”

Adapted from press release by Louise Fordham

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/europe-cis/05112014/hope-construction-materials-wins-mpa-john-crabbe-award-2014-798/