A shining example

Ritchie Clapson, Managing Director of Capita Bobrowski, and Malcolm Richards – Director in Capita Bobrowski's Southampton office - are taking part the annual Lighthouse Run from John O’Groats to London this Sunday and Monday.

Now in its fourth year, the Lighthouse Run is a motoring race that sees teams driving over 1,500 miles while undertaking a variety of fiendish tasks and changes of route.

The event - a firm fixture in the Construction Industry calendar – raises funds for the Lighthouse Club Benevolent Fund which provides direct, practical, and financial assistance to construction workers and their families in time of need.

Over the past three years the race has raised well over £100,000 for the Benevolent Fund and is aiming to raise a further £50,000 at this year's event.

Good luck!

Find out more about the Lighthouse Run (and maybe even join in!)

Capita Symonds aquired Structural and Civil Engineering firm NRM Bobrowski in April 2008 to form Capita Bobrowski. Find out more about the acquisition or find out more about Capita Bobrowski

Jumping for joy

Three members of Capita Symonds’ Blackburn office have raised more than £1,400 for Macmillan Cancer Support with a sponsored skydive.

Andy Archer, Dave Richardson and Martin Haydock completed the 14,000 ft dive near Lancaster.

Well done boys!

See how they got on:

Fish out of troubled water

Capita Symonds Aquatic Resource Management (ARM) team have finished work on a project to repair one of Mid Wales’ most important tourist attractions.

The team, led by Project Manager Will Kennedy, provided preliminary design, project specification, and contractual services as part of the programme to restore the ecological balance of the water at Llandrindod Lake in Powys.

The high profile project, carried out on behalf of Powys County Council (PCC), was a result of a major ecological incident in 2006 which resulted in the death of thousands of fish.

As part of the work Capita Symonds undertook the preliminary design of major embankment enhancements utilising materials dredged from the lake, as well as planting a variety of native marginal plant species (not to mention liaising with multiple stakeholders to ensure that the work met the requirements of all parties). The team also assisted with the procurement of a specialist contractor in line with the constrained budget of the council.

Find out more about our Aquatic Resource Management Team

See what we did in the video:

Charity drive

Another story from Capita's 'Charity Week' activities.......

Capita Symonds and Capita Bobrowski managed to raise a total of £6,300 for Macmillan Cancer Support by holding a client drinks reception, including scalextric competition.

Thanks go to Cordek, Philips Lighting, Flaktwoods and Condek for sponsoring the F1 scalextric cars (this alone raised £1,000 for the charity) and to everyone for their kind support and donations.

Capita Symonds & ICE Safety Lecture 08

The 17th annual Capita Symonds & ICE Safety Lecture lecture took place yesterday (22nd October) in London

This year's guest speaker was Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority, John Armitt. John presented his paper entitled "Combining Safety, Health and Environment - have we succeeded?"

Find out more about the lecture and view the transcript

NB: Further write-ups to follow.

Urban Vision saves the day for Rugby Club

Urban Vision stepped in to help Eccles & Salford Juniors Rugby League club after the team’s goal posts were sawn in half by vandals.

The timber posts were donated around 20 years ago – and were thought to be amongst the tallest in the UK.

Urban Vision paid for the replacement posts which were installed in time for the first game of the new season – a 20-18 victory over Waterhead from Oldham.

The posts feature Urban Vision branding on the post protector pads and, as a special thank you, the club has also added the company’s logo to the team’s shirts.

Alfrieda Kindon, secretary of Eccles & Salford Juniors said: “Club members were devastated at the destruction of the posts, which were historically important within rugby league, simply for their sheer scale. We are very grateful to Urban Vision for stepping in to provide us with new posts and we’re looking forward to them having just as long an association with the club as their predecessors.”

Professional rugby league player Adrian Morley - who once played for Eccles ARL - also visited the ground prior to flying out to Australia with the England team for the forthcoming Rugby League World Cup. He said: “It's such a shame what happened to the rugby posts, Urban Vision's magnificent gesture is a great support for the club”.

Bill Taylor, managing director of Urban Vision added: “As a local company heavily involved in the top ranks of rugby league through our work with Salford Reds we were very happy to get involved at grass roots level by providing Eccles & Salford Juniors with the new posts.”

Urban Vision Urban Vision is a ground breaking multi-disciplinary organisation, formed as a joint venture between Salford City Council, Capita Symonds and Morrison Highways Maintenance. Find out more about Urban Vision

The show must go on

Don't forget to remember the sparkle....

Games of conkers banned in schools ... litter bins removed for attracting wasps ... hundreds of trees cut down for fear of falling branches ... pantomime stars banned from throwing sweets into audiences ... cross country runs seen as too dangerous ... ‘outdoor’ pursuits for children banned ... pancake runs squashed... and Santa Claus in a shopping centre made to wear a body harness in his 5mph sleigh ...

Many ‘Health & Safety’ stories in the tabloids are apocryphal but there is no doubt that in recent years we have seen the growth of a risk adverse society. The madness may be under threat from Gordon Brown’s new risk assessment watchdog (The Risk and Regulation Advisory Council) - but I sometimes wonder “How did we get here?”

Having worked in entertainment and leisure safety for many years I can honestly say that some of the events I attend nowadays are, quite frankly, boring. Events are supposed to be exciting, stimulating and fun. The public now, more often than not, wish to participate rather than watch, to push the boat out, seek a buzz, an adrenalin rush …but a serous paranoia has gripped event organizers, leading to many cancellations and/or curtailment of activities.

Admittedly, this paranoia is sometimes understandable as it’s a direct result of successful compensation claims by the public fuelled by over zealous legal eagles and a lack of risk management protocols. For example, the public have been successful in even the most bizarre claims for compensation - climbing over a perimeter fence and falling down a rabbit hole being one of my particular favourites! Nevertheless, this cotton wool culture is seriously destroying the event industry’s spirit of adventure, fun, enjoyment, fulfilment and excitement. It’s time to put things into perspective and actually get to grips with certain issues.

We need a better understanding of the law and, in particular, risk assessments. Health & Safety legislation requires employers to ensure that work places/activities are safe - including events. Of course, risk assessment of the activities must be carried out to deal with significant hazards and appropriate control measures must be put in place. However, only reasonable foreseeable significant hazards are to be considered and reasonably practicable control measures put in place - based on potential likelihood and severity. It’s basically commonsense and recognises you cannot, or indeed be expected to, guarantee an event is 101% safe.

Proper risk assessments by competent persons can achieve good legal safety precautions for almost any activity. An innovative, practical, pragmatic problem solving, creative approach to hazard control can be very rewarding - resulting in more exciting, stimulating, challenging events with new diverse, unorthodox, ‘dangerous’ activities accommodated. Paranoid over zealous, nit picking, paper producing processes do nothing of any value. Properly thought out safety procedures that are put into practice on the day need to be appropriate but not stifling. Risk has to be managed, but it cannot always be removed - and nor should it.

We need to put on a show, to entertain and thrill crowds. With risk assessments and skilled, creative, event Health & Safety officials we can still put on shows of which Barnum himself would have been proud.

Richard Limb, Director of Capita Symonds’ Leisure and Event Safety team

Links:

• Find out more about Capita Symonds' Leisure and Event Safety Team
• Enroll on the Diploma in Events Safety Management developed by Derby University and Capita Symonds
• What to know what's true and what's myth in the world of health and safety? Have a look at the Myth of the Month page on the Health & Safety Executive website

Capita Symonds comes 6th in Top Consultancy list

Capita Symonds has been listed 6th in Building Magazine's Top 250 Consultancies list. Capita Architecture also came 6th in the Top 100 Architects list.

We are also listed as 7th in the Top 100 Fee Earners list

See full article and results in Building Magazine

Award for Street Lighting discussion paper

David Denner (Asset Manager in our Cwmbran office) has won an award from the Institution of Lighting Engineers (ILE) for Best Regional Paper 2008.

David's paper, "Street Lighting: An Engineer’s Perspective", discussed the evolving role of street lighting engineers in helping to maintain safe public highways in the face of ever decreasing budgets, greater demands from the community, increasing energy costs and changes in legislation.

Until recently, David was the Street Lighting Engineer at Caerphilly County Borough Council, responsible for the day to day management of the street lighting group. He has 18 years experience within the public sector, working for various local highway authorities in South Wales.

David has also been instrumental in the co-ordination of the energy tender for the South Wales consortium - which consists of all the Unitary Authorities in South Wales involved in the procurement of street lighting energy - along with the management of the consortium's photo cell array and associated software.

Well done David.

New Appointment for Acoustics Team

Our Acoustics team has just appointed Susan Witterick as Senior Acoustic Consultant.

Susan joins from Applied Acoustic Design and has over 10 years’ experience covering a variety of acoustical disciplines and project types.

She has recently specialised in acoustical design for offices and schools and also has significant experience in HVAC noise control - recently designing teaching, recording and performance spaces at the Cork School of Music.

Susan has also worked extensively on environmental noise projects including the Eastern Quarry development in Kent, the M50 Motorway Widening and Expansion in Dublin, and transportation noise issues at Los Angeles International Airport and The Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Dr Rukhsana Adam, Director of Acoustics & Air Quality, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Susan to the team – her experience in large architectural and environmental schemes will help us build both our internal client base within our Design and Infrastructure divisions and external clients such as Balfour Beatty and Kier.”

As well as her acoustic expertise Susan has a keen interest in Cornish history and genealogy, and has an MA in Cornish Studies.

Find out more about our Capita Symonds' Acoustics services and Projects