Woodford Haulage Ltd Going for Gold

Woodford haulage Ltd are based at Barking Riverside Recycling Park, Essex. We operate a fleet of lorries used for the transport of construction and demolition waste, which is taken to one of our recycling plants for further processing. We take time in analysing which materials we can take in order for us to maximise recycling and material re-use. This enables us as a company to help the environment by minimising landfill. Woodford Haulage have been trading for almost 20 years in the haulage, muckaway and waste disposal industry, with our Chairmen and Directors having over 25 years experience in this industry. We are a family orientated business with three generations working together. We have built the company from one lorry to a fleet of over 18 purely based on our reliability and quality of service and overall commitment to our Clients and Projects. Michael Huke, Director explains how important FORS is to our Company.

FORS dovetails our business principles and ethics. When we looked at the requirements and benefits of joining the scheme, we saw that they fit perfectly with our ethos of improving safety whilst complementing our drive to improve fuel efficiency and reduce our environmental impact.

We hope to achieve our Gold accreditation and we will ensure we maintain this standard and grow with FORS as the standard continues to develop.

The performance management toolkit really helped us set our targets for reducing our carbon footprint and accidents. We also have regular managerial meetings to discuss our fuel usage and try and find out where we could make more savings. FORS has helped us improve our filing systems and procedures.

‘FORS has helped us achieve compliance and safety.’ – Michael Huke Director

All of our 18 vehicles are fitted with 360 degree cameras, audible turn left alarms, Class IV, V, VI Mirrors, Fresnel Lenses, Flashing beacons on the roof of our cabs, cyclist safety stickers. All our drivers have completed all DCPC training and Safer Urban Driving courses, we tapped into the FORS network of training providers and safety equipment providers to save money. All our drivers have also completed the FORS E-Learning modules.

‘We have reduced our Accidents by 69.23% in the last 12 Months compared to our baseline year.’ – Michael Huke Director

Once we were Bronze we decided that we should progress to Silver because we were already doing everything that was required for the Silver accreditation in particular all our vehicles already had all the safety equipment fitted and our drivers have already done the Safe Urban Driving Course. Once we were Silver accredited we decided to show best practise and make ourselves standout from our competitors and go for the Gold accreditation.

• We have reduced our accidents which meant our insurance premiums also reduced. We hoping to improve on our Carbon Footprint by making sure our driver selects the best possible route to our sites and reduce our Idling across the Fleet too.

*Annual improvement in MPG and Incidents per 100,000 Kms.

• All my drivers complete a comprehensive Medical Declaration on an annual basis even though the FORS Standards recommend once every 5 years. Its mentioned in the drivers handbooks which also forms part of their contract of employment that it is their responsibility to inform the company ASAP if they develop any medical conditions or are prescribed any medication that might affect their ability to drive. Once a driver has informed the company we would investigate it and if we feel the driver needs to get a letter from his GP informing us that he is fit to drive again. We will only let him drive a company vehicle once he has received the letter and given it to the company. We would then decide on how often we needed to do driver assessment on the driver going forward.
• We have recently implemented a Recruitment Policy that outlines that we as a company would look at employing young drivers/ employees where possible and training them up to do what is required in a particular role.
• We have no work carried out at our operating centre as all servicing etc is carried out at main dealers. As a tipper fleet we never need to do any loading/ unloading in our operating yard as we leave our yard empty go to site collect waste then dispose of it and bring a empty vehicle back at the end of the day. The only noise is generated while our vehicles are idling when the drivers are doing their defect checks. Other than that, there is no other noise on site.
• Unfortunately, as we run 32 Tonne Tipper lorries, we are currently unable to replace any of our vehicles with Electric or Hybrid. But we have been replacing all our lorries with the Euro 6 engines and that’s had a huge impact in reducing our carbon footprint and increased our MPG across the whole fleet.

We are actively looking at the new low entry cabs and seeing if we can replace our current fleet with them when we come to replace them. But again looking at whole life costs, its not cost effective for us because of the size of our fleet as yet, but hopefully going forward the manufacturers will be reducing the costs.

Achieving FORS Gold Accreditation shows how dedicated we are as a company to improving road safety and the safety of all vulnerable road users in London as well as nationally. We will continuously use what FORS has taught us to help reduce our carbon footprint and make the roads so safer for everyone that uses them.