Solihull firm boosts Brake campaign

The road safety charity Brake is getting a cash boost from a local company’s campaign to improve the safety of its road workers.

Ringway Infrastructure Services, which maintains highways in Solihull on behalf of the borough council, has handed over a cheque for £2,201 to Brake.

As part of a drive to reduce risk on its sites, Ringway promised to donate £1 for every ‘near miss’ reported by its employees nationally. The highway services company analyses these hazardous events in which its people could have been hurt. By learning the lessons, Ringway is able to improve procedures and training so that future incidents and injuries are prevented.

That policy is working, as injuries continue to fall across Ringway, while near miss reporting has risen almost four-fold over the last couple of years. This latest donation takes the total raised for Brake by all Ringway’s divisions to more than £2,700. The Solihull team accounted for over £200.

Brake’s Fundraising Officer Helen Mervill received the cheque from Phil Green (Site Foreman), Andrew Evangelou (Operative) and Derek Mathers, Ringway’s Divisonal Manager (right).

Derek said: “RIS Solihull has really embraced near miss reporting. It’s a proactive way of identifying hazards before they develop into actual incidents.”

He added: “Brake and Ringway are both concerned about safety, on the road and off it. Our fundraising has helped raise awareness of near misses and motivated people to report them.”