F R Shadbolt and Sons Ltd Going for Gold

After 60 successful years in North East London we are now well established in North East Essex and are continuing to go from strength to strength. Not only have we invested extensively in new factory plant and state of the art machinery to complement the traditional skills of the Shadbolt craftsman, our ongoing R&D programme has resulted in a range of new products designed to broaden our appeal throughout all sectors of the interior construction market. Our purpose-made high performance doors and doorsets are ideal for commercial, residential, healthcare, education and hotel buildings. We’re proud to put our name to it. Melanie Ward, Health & Safety Administrator is our elected Fuel and Emissions Campion and he explains how important FORS is to our Company’

We came across FORS when tendering for work across London. When we looked at the requirements and benefits of joining the scheme we saw that they fitted in perfectly with our ethos of improving safety whilst complementing our drive to improve fuel efficiency and reduce our environmental impact’

We take compliance and safety very seriously so we achieved our Bronze and Silver Accreditation first time. FORS did help us by providing training and tools that improved the policies and procedures’

The performance management toolkit really helped us set our targets for reducing our carbon footprint and improving our MPG. FORS has helped us improve our filing systems and procedures’

‘FORS has helped us achieve compliance and safety’ – Melanie Ward Health & Safety Administrator

‘We have increased our MPG by 2.70% since the previous year’ – Melanie Ward Health & Safety Administrator

All our drivers have completed their Safe Urban Driving course. We have also invested heavily in vehicle safety systems cameras, nearside proximity sensors and audible alarms for all our vehicles. All our drivers have also planned in to complete the FORS E-Learning modules.’

• We have managed to reduce our accidents by 100% in the past 12 months compared to the previous years. We achieved this by making sure we always selected the best route possible to all our sites and we plan ahead before leaving the yard

• We get all my drivers to complete a comprehensive Medical Declaration on an annually basis even though the FORS Standard states once every 5 years. It’s also mentioned in the drivers handbook that if they at any point in time start suffering from a medical condition they need to notify the company ASAP as well as if they need to start taking medication prescribed by their GP or over the counter drugs. We will then investigate it to see if it’s still safe for the driver to be driving for the company and we may even ask the driver to get a letter from his doctor informing the company if he is still able to drive for the company. We will then start doing more driver assessments on the driver to make sure he isn’t a risk to the company or anyone on the road.
• We have recently adopted a recruitment policy to try and help us recruit young drivers into the Transport industry.
• We only use the Operating centre for parking our lorries. We use gas fork lifts for loading/ unloading in our operating centre and all our servicing and cleaning is done by main dealers at their sites not ours. The only noise generated is when my lorries are idling so we can carry out our defect checks. All my lorries have white noise reversing alarms fitted to them.
• We carry fire doors and panelling to construction sites across the whole country. As we rely on our customers asking us to go to various construction sites across the whole country to deliver our products, we never know where we are going until they need us. Therefore we can’t afford to try and move anything via barge or train as we collect all the equipment from building sites and there is no other method than using a lorry and we then asked to deliver anywhere in the country. So using a Lorry is the most cost effective way of moving our clients goods. We have replaced all our lorries with Euro 6 engines. We have looked at electric vehicles and because of the weights we carry and the fact that our lorries need long range fuel tanks no manufactures have produced an alternative fuelled vehicle that can carry the weight we do and cover the some mileage we do.

We will continue using what FORS has taught us to improve our MPG and reduce any wasted idling we might have and keep our Parking fines and Charges as low as possible.’

Gaining 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. We have also managed to make a significant saving by reducing our fuel usage and improving our MPG. We have also reduced the amount of accidents we had on the previous year which resulted in our insurance company reducing our premiums.

*Please note: All published FORS Gold case studies have been submitted by the accredited company named above and transcribed verbatim