April 2008 - Northgate Wins 2008 RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Award
Northgate, the UK's largest vehicle rental business, is celebrating winning a prestigious Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents' (RoSPA) Occupational Health and Safety Award in 2008.
The Silver Award will be presented at a ceremony at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel, National Exhibition Centre, on Tuesday, May 13, alongside Safety & Health Expo 2008, the UK's premier health and safety at work exhibition.
Darlington-based Northgate plc's brands include flexible vehicle solutions provider Northgate Vehicle Hire - with more than 65,000 vehicles on its fleet operating from a national network of 90 locations - fleet management company Fleet Technique, which manages on behalf of fleet owners, the maintenance and administration for more than 15,000 vehicles, and used vehicle retail sales channel Van Monster with eight major outlets and a group stock of over 1,500 vehicles.
David Rawlins, RoSPA awards manager, said: "Northgate has shown a commitment to protecting the health and well-being of its employees and others. We hope other businesses and organisations will follow its lead and strive for continuous improvement in health and safety management."
The 2008 triumph follows Northgate also winning a RoSPA Silver Award in 2006.
Colin Gilstin, Northgate's health and safety manager, said: "Health and safety to Northgate is about making sure that our employees and our customers are kept as safe as possible. Through the procedures we have put in place such, as licensing our mechanics, through the Society of Operation Engineers IRTEC Licensing Scheme, we aim to ensure that our customers are in safe hands when they rent vehicles from us."
One of those customers is highways contractor Ringway Group, Europe's leading roadworks and road maintenance business. The company presented Northgate Vehicle Hire with the Health and Safety Award in its 2007 Supply Chain Awards, which are presented to best practice suppliers.
In presenting the award, Scott Wardrop, managing director of Ringway, said: "Northgate has shown real evidence of commitment from the top of the company towards health and safety. The company has in place a range of initiatives to ensure that customers can rent vehicles confident in the knowledge that cutting-edge health and safety best practice is being followed."
Mr Gilstin added: "We are delighted that our long-time focus on promoting health and safety within our own business and through that of our customers' continues to be recognised.
"Northgate is committed to the delivery of outstanding performance in health and safety through a policy of co-operation, communication and competence applied consistently and continually throughout all of our operations."
For more than 50 years, the RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Awards have offered organisations an ideal way of showing their commitment to health and safety. It invites companies and organisations of all sizes from the full spectrum of work activities and from all over the world to enter in the hope of obtaining one of its prestigious awards.
An award is given following a submission of an organisation's safety arrangements for RoSPA's review. In addition, organisations must answer a number of key performance indicator questions. The fundamental purpose of the awards are:
To promote and motivate an organisation's health and safety performance
To provide a means of recognising and celebrating an organisation's health and safety achievements
To promote to those external of the organisation that a positive
safety culture exists within the organisation
The RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Awards 2008 are sponsored
by NEBOSH (The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety
and Health), the leading health and safety professional examining
body.
