July 2014
Two of Carlisle’s biggest businesses have been praised for implementing exceptional standards of health and safety management and risk control.
Story Homes and Story Contracting, which between them employ more than 400 direct employees and work with hundreds of sub-contractors, were awarded exceptional marks in a risk control benchmarking audit.
Marsh Risk Consulting carried out the audit across the various divisions, including Rail, Plant, Construction and Homes. The score awarded for Health and Safety Risk Control was ‘Highly Commendable’ and the score awarded for Health and Safety Management was ‘Outstanding’. When compared to similar construction companies nationally Story’s benchmark scores were the highest in both categories.
Story’s management and operational teams have provided a key focus on consistent health and safety across all of the businesses. They make sure that projects remain safe places to work and manage them through rigorous procedures and protocols as well as ongoing monitoring and evaluation.
Marsh’s comprehensive benchmarking methodology covered various elements including documentation, management systems, risk assessment, training, reporting procedures, behavioural safety and monitoring, etc. as well as practical site issues such as first aid, access methods, traffic management, plant/machinery safety, chemical hazards, physical hazards and employee wellbeing.
Fred Story, founder of both Story businesses, said of the achievement: “We have put ongoing effort into maintaining our excellent standards, and health and safety remains one of our key objectives.
“Over time, we have ingrained a strong culture of health and safety into everything we do and the scores from the audit prove that we have delivered our health and safety promise to clients and colleagues through our honest approach and a lot of hard work. We will continue to build on this as we grow.”
Story Homes and Story Contracting are both going through significant periods of growth across Cumbria and also the wider regions.
