Kilnbridge Construction Services Ltd has recently celebrated its 29th anniversary, the renowned construction, civil engineering and specialist services company is based at Canning Town East London. The Plant and Transport Director Thomas Barrett explains how the FORS standard continues to promote best practice by nurturing and rewarding positive behaviour and a positive culture of compliance change and efficiency, it has also significantly contributed to our Sustainability Strategy especially in the areas surrounding CO2 & Waste.
FORS has enabled the company to reduce fuel burn and correlating emissions significantly by setting the standard and allowing the company to raise the bar incrementally year on year. Collision frequency reductions, particularly in urban environments along with a reduction in PCN’s issued largely attributed to the FORS e- learning and driver CPC training.
The company first became aware of the FORS Standard through the industry press and trade shows back in 2010 and quickly set about joining the scheme, our FORS number being 000380. We wanted to promote overall best practice by embracing safety and compliance within the construction transport world.
This has cultivated a culture of compliance and excellence as the standard has evolved with the industry, this is our 11th year of being FORS accredited.
Kilnbridge Construction Services Ltd passed its initial bronze audit on the first attempt back in 2010 and was one of the first construction companies in East London to achieve this accolade. This was the foundation that enabled the company to evolve and grow with the standard. We now have Mick Kemp within our team whose skills and experience will elevate our performance to the next level, Mick was part of the first cohort to complete the whole series of FORS workshops and become a FORS Practitioner, he then went on to teach the FORS Practitioner workshops for over 7 years.
Having been bronze accredited in the early days of the FORS Standard, as soon as the opportunity arose to work towards and achieve the Silver Standard the company seized the moment and achieved this at the first attempt (again). This was also repeated at gold standard.
Once FORS accreditation was achieved, the company took advantage of the various online tools, FORS practitioner workshops, annual conferences, funded driver CPC training and e- learning. The DCPC training alone has represented some significant savings of around £10,000 per annum.
“The Safe Urban Driving, Staying Legal, LoCity driver CPC courses delivered by Fleet Source in our Hi-tech training room have assisted immensely in improving driver behaviour and operational efficiencies with demonstrable savings”, Thomas Barrett, Plant and Fleet Director.
“There continues to be a reduction in low speed / urban incidents, this I believe is attributed to improved driver training, especially the SUD course”, Dermot McDermott Founder & Chief Executive Office.
As soon as it was possible to achieve the silver and gold standards, the company set about achieving these at the earliest opportunity and use this to set the company apart from its peers and win additional work.
The company carries out health checks with drivers on a six-monthly basis as an absolute minimum, this includes eyesight checks. The health assessment covers a broad spread of conditions with a direct link with an occupational health professional if needed. The company actively promotes healthy lifestyles through the driver Newsletter, social media channels and toolbox talks.
The company tries to attract drivers from a broad demographic; the long term unemployed, females and ethnic minorities. The company promotes the industry by attending schools, colleges and job fairs.
The company is mindful that it operates in Greater London and the surrounding areas, as a result the company brought 12 Mercedes Benz Econics which gives the ‘best in class’ solution to various transport issues, view of VRU’s & noise pollution being two key issues (we try to operate away from residential areas where possible and the adoption new quieter vehicles assists in lowering nuisance noise). These Euro 6 vehicles purchase represent a noise reduction of over 12Db.
Modal shift opportunities continue to be examined however at this stage there remains little opportunity given the lack of available infrastructure for the work profile.
The company has an ongoing desire to retain, maintain and develop the FORS Gold standard as recognition of the hard work by the whole team in consistently raising the bar. The fleet renewal process actively considers vulnerable road user safety in vehicle specification by adding technologies such as side scan and nearside proximity warning systems and left turn warnings. Our aim remains to encourage others to take advantage of the benefits that FORS can bring not only to logistics providers but to all road users.
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