Lanes rail team wins London Underground safety award hat trick

Lanes Group has struck gold in a hat trick of safety awards for its work on the London Underground. The Lanes Rail Division has been given a Gold Award by London Underground (LU), in recognition of its continuous improvement in safety culture.

Two Lanes site supervisors, Rob Wesley and Paul Bettis, received individual awards for outstanding safety performance. LU’s Asset Performance Directorate has also given Lanes a Special Contractors Award in its Injury League Awards for 2013.

The awards recognise work done over the last two years to develop and implement two new safety systems. The rail-anchored safety harness and the wall-anchor bolt safety harness are both used for working at height.

Lanes Group Rail Division Director Matt Todd said:

“We are very proud to have won these awards. They reflect the ingenuity of our technical team, the dedication of our operations team, epitomised by Rob and Paul, and the readiness of our workforce to embrace safety innovation.

“These safety initiatives have been developed in close partnership with London Underground. We believe strongly in taking a collaborative approach to developing systems of work that are both safer and more productive.”

The rail-anchored safety harness is based on a simple lifting strop. It is looped around a rail and attached to a harness, which prevents maintenance operators from stepping onto unsafe areas, for example on station canopies.The wall anchor system allows a bolt to be attached to a wall. A safety harness can then be attached using a fixed latching system, again ensuring operators stay in safe areas while working at height.Rail Division Health, Safety and Environment Manager Scott Tracey said: “The rail-anchored harness replaced an anchoring device that weighed 250kg that was inefficient to use and was an injury risk in its own right.

“Both these systems, and other ideas in the pipeline, are designed to be simple to use and improve working conditions. This encourages take-up and promotes a positive attitude to health and safety.”

The rail-anchored harness is now being used by contractors across the LU system, while the anchor bolt system has been introduced successfully at number of stations, with a view to expanding its use over the next 12 months.

Since 2010, Lanes Group has operated one of four total purchased service contracts for LU, providing reactive and planned maintenance for vegetation control, fencing, premises and buildings, drainage, seepage and locks.

The LU Gold Awards are presented every year to teams that demonstrate excellence in operational working practices on the underground system.

Lanes Group has achieved awards success across its operations in recognition of its strong commitment to health and safety. This year, the company was awarded a RoSPA Gold Award for the fourth consecutive year.

Last month, Lanes won the Construction News Health and Safety Initiative of the Year Award for 2013. Judges praised the company’s “relentless focus” on improving health and safety.

The company has developed the first City & Guilds course for drainage engineers. A significant component of the training is best practice in health and safety.

Lanes has also developed a new training and education system called What Good Looks Like. A series of detailed cartoon-style pictures of work sites shows how they should be set up and prompts engineers to consider risks.

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