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LSBUD Summer of Safety Awareness

As you will be aware, the prime LSBUD mantra is Safe Digging for All and we repeat this constantly, without apology, because it should always be front and centre of everything that we do.

We want, and need, to protect the pipes and cables of the 155+ asset owners who make up our Membership, but, together, we all want to ensure that we do everything we can to protect the lives and livelihoods of those individuals who work around these assets.

Everyone should be given as much information, as clearly as possible, to ensure that work is carried out safely, whether you are a major Highways Contractor, a Fencing Firm working on farmland, or one of us planting an apple tree in our own back garden.

I appreciate that the messages contained within this blog do not all relate to Safe Digging and may be difficult to read, but they need to be shared widely to ensure that we put Safety First, Safety Always.

This has never been clearer to me than in recent months when we have heard from three key industry experts highlighting the importance of this message:

Firstly, at a Safety Hub meeting in June, Ben Hodsoll, Group Health, Safety & Environmental Manager at MJ Church Ltd, presented an incredible near-miss for an operative who struck an overhead electricity cable when removing rubbish from a site. It was clear how affected the operative was when he realised how close he came to disaster that day.

Secondly, at our own National Damage Prevention Day on 26th June, our keynote speaker was Jon Butterworth, CEO National Gas, outlining the major safety mistakes and lessons that needed to be learnt from the Piper Alpha Disaster in 1988. With hindsight, all attendees could see how key errors in planning, implementation and instruction lead to one of the worse safety cases in modern British history, but it was also clear that smaller, avoidable, versions of these mistakes still happen today.

Thirdly, I had the pleasure of hosting an LSBUD Meet the Member Webinar in May with Dan Mee, Principal Integrity Engineer at Cadent Gas where we discussed the way our two companies interact to ensure safety along the Cadent Pipeline Network. As part of his presentation, Dan shared their latest safety video which, although fictional, is no less powerful in its messaging:

Cadent Gas Safety Message

From a personal perspective, I understand how events can have a lasting impact on families. Back in 2019, my sister lost her husband to a completely avoidable industrial accident. If the company had carried out proper maintenance and inspection, this would not have happened. Instead, my sister, and her children had to work their way through the maze of Health & Safety Inspections, Court Cases and still await a Coroner’s Court, all whilst trying to process their loss.

This is one of the reasons that I joined LSBUD in 2022, because I immediately recognised how committed the team was to work with Safety Experts, Operators and Asset Managers to get the Safety First, Safety Always, message across.

At LSBUD we will never forget the importance of Safe Digging for All.

To this aim we have recently expanded our list of available services, if you would like to see more on what LSBUD can do for you, please click here.

Rick Crowhurst

Business Development Manager