12 June 2018

Health, Safety and Environmental Forum

Last month, BPIF Southern Region held an open Health, Safety & Environmental Forum for its members – but with a difference! The event was hosted by Newsprinters Ltd – the largest news printer site in the world!

The group met at the Newsprinters Broxbourne, Hertfordshire site with the event being attended by fellow BPIF members with differing production backgrounds. The intention of the event was a benchmarking opportunity, sharing ideas and formats with an aim to deliver a smarter way of approaching health and safety.

The forum opened with an update from Newsprinters Darren Webb, Group H&S Manager, taking the group through the site operation, outlining how the machinery is continually inspected and maintained, and highlighting the importance of monitoring and controlling high risk activities on-site to prevent injury.

This was followed by a site tour to see the plant in action – the tour was led by Lee Thomas who is a long-serving employee of Newsprinters starting out at the age of 17 when he remembered attending an ‘Introduction to Print' training course with the BPIF.

Members saw the full scale of the production, from the preparation of the Web Press through to the delivery end of the final article, all with health and safety in mind.

Darren then took the group through health and safety challenges, with a review of the tour to share best practice amongst members, discussing various topics that members found useful and could be taken back to their respective sites to improve safety.

Mandy Robson, Head of HS&E for the BPIF, took the group through a regular update of Safety and Environmental Legislation updates over the previous six months and also those upcoming; various recent prosecutions were discussed to provide a heads-up to the group that complacency isn't an option and that injury can happen at any time, so to prepare for the unexpected. BPIF support materials were reviewed with the recent updates within Spring and Summer Checklists; new Safety Posters; Toolbox Talks and the forthcoming Safe Systems of Work.

Anita Lloyd, Director at Squire Patton Boggs (UK) LLP joined the group to provide a very informative presentation on Environmental Law ‘myth busting', including topics such as Waste Regulation; Packaging Waste; Asbestos; Legionella; and Dust as well as an overview on the impact of Brexit on environmental law.

The open BPIF Health, Safety & Environmental Forums are held within each of BPIF's regions every six months, providing support and information on legislation changes, updates on BPIF's support materials; and guest speakers providing specialist presentations on key topics.

For more information on HS&E please click here.