Welcome to Dan McCaffery.

We would like to welcome to Worcestershire Dan McCaffery who joins our "target team". Dan joins us from Amey and we wish him all the best in his new role.

Jay leaves the target price team to take up a new position with Eurovia at Enfield, and we would like to thank him for all his efforts here and continued success in the future.

Dave Henley appointed Warndon Workshop Manager.

Dave Henley today takes on the new role of Workshop Manager at our Warndon Fleet Maintenance Department. We are confident that Dave will continue the good work achieved to date at Warndon and wish him success in his new post.

Drive Safe - Drive Green

Today is December 1st, the start of our Worcestershire "Drive Safe - Drive Green" campaign aimed at improving safety and reducing carbon. Today you should have received a campaign text.

The chart shows the tyre pressure audits carried out in November in Worcestershire. The red bars on the graph indicate vehicles found to have incorrect tyre pressures. We have installed equipment in all depots, please make sure your have the right pressure.

Worcestershire Highways take delivery of Multi Hog

Yesterday we took delivery of our new Multi Hog. This is a vehicle designed especially for highway maintenance and can be used for a range of activities. The vehicle comes equipped to carry out road planing, grass cutting and winter maintenance activities.

Training is now taking place and the vehicle will go into service next week.

Pipeline Safety

This week we held two pipeline safety workshops at Lydiate Ash and Newlands to remind everyone of the special requirements for safe working in close proximity to pipeline systems.

Please remember the following "donts",,,,

Ringway Worcestershire sponsor Bewdley Christmas Lights.

Bewdley Lights

Ringway Worcestershire are sponsoring the switch on of this years Bewdley christmas lights - why not pop along.


The festivities start in Bewdley on Saturday 26th November as the big switch is flicked for the Christmas Light Switch-On.
From 2pm and throughout the afternoon there will be music from Stourport Choral Society, Cleobury Mortimer Concert Band, Pelican Riot, Severn Valley Samba Band, Bewdley Concert Band and Bridgnorth Male Voice Choir.
Hursty & Helen will be on stage for the light switch on at 5.30pm by the Mayor, carnival princesses and Santa from his gingerbread house.

Drive for Life Winners.

Three of the five awards on offer have been
won by Worcestershire.

Commercial Vehicle - Best Driver
Winners
RIS Worcestershire
Daniel Miller
Overall Winner
Daniel Miller
RIS Worcester

Driver Knowledge Competition
Winners
RIS Worcestershire
Kenneth Jones

Special Recognition
RIS Worcestershire
Winner - Wayne Lunnon
Overall Winner
Wayne Lunnon
RIS Worcester

They will be able to choose "Red Letter Day prizes from the following list,,,,,,


Activities
Aston Martin Driving Thrill (selected locations)
Audi R8 Sensation (selected locations)
Light aircraft flight experience (selected locations)
Ferrari Driving Thrill
Hot Air Balloon
Pampering
Bannatyne Relaxation Day for Two
One Night Weekend Charming Escape for Two
Pamper Spa Day
Stadium Tour
Selected football stadiums tours for two
Other prizes
Sony 12.1 MP Cybershot Digital Camera
IPod
Mobile phone
Sat nav

As ever a great effort by Ringway Worcestershire

Tyre pressure checks.

BBC One Show article on tyre checks – 24th October 2011
The article hi-lighted the increased risks to drivers who fail to check and
maintain their tyres. In 2010 there were 1200 road casualties attributed to
poorly maintained tyres and in the last 5 years there have been 164 fatalities.
Many drivers are waiting longer to carry out routine vehicle maintenance in
order to save money. However a defective tyre can increase stopping distance
by 6 meters, resulting in a much worse accident and significantly higher costs to
repair the vehicle.
In 2010 Police gave endorsements to 10,000 drivers with defective tyres, a 4
year high. Drivers received 3 points for each defective tyre and upto a £2,500
fine. 43% of the drivers who received endorsements for defective tyres did not
lose their licence despite having more than 12 points. This is because they
claimed “exceptional hardship” as part of their defence.
This increase in drivers failing to maintain tyres and potentially receiving points
further demonstrates the need for employers to check the licences of all
employees driving on business and to ensure that they are carrying out routine
maintenance checks.
For expert advice on tyre maintenance go to www.tyresafe.org

Next week we will have in place at all depots tyre inflation and checking equipment, and we will also be carrying out spot checks on sites and at the depots.

Worcestershire Lone Worker alarms.

We have now taken delivery of several gps lone worker alarms. These are safety aids to be used when you have to carry out works on the network alone. These are particularly appropriate for Sam Davies and Derek Vine who mark out the sites for underground services prior to work commencing.

Anyone acting as a lone worker can obtain an alarm from Highways House and we will provide instructions and a risk assessment.

PINK DAY 2011 STYLE

Pink Day 2011

This Friday is "Wear it pink day"

Last year we had some very healthy inter depot competition, lets do even better this year and have some photos from Wrndon and Newlands.

Remember everyone participating pays £2, how about those that do not paying £3.

New Supervisor

Congratulations to Rob Cosnett who takes up his new role as a Supervisor working with Phil Burns as from November 1st. Rob will be looking after safety fence works and becoming more involved in other works carried out by Phil and his team.

Highway Excellence Awards

The innovative "Twist and Go" stop and go board developed here by Worcestershire Highways was shortlisted for an award at the Highway Excellence Awards. The judges commented, "simple and effective, improves customer perception and improves site safety".

Great work by all concerned.

Jeans for Genes Day.

We have raised £110 to help children in the UK with Genetic Disorders http://www.jeansforgenesday.com/

A great effort by everyone.

Highways House basks in the Autumn sun.

This late summer gave us an excellent opportunity to photograph some of the team. We are using the picture as part of an award entry for partnership working.

"the art of partnering - taking the P out of partners".

Bewdley Hill, Kidderminster.

We are currently carrying out a resurfacing scheme at night in Kidderminster. The way the site has been set up is an excellent demonstration of the Worcestershire Highways team working together to produce standards that set us well above the industry norm.

There was excellent use of floodlights, safety zones and life lines, the Worcestershire developed method of pedestrian management was working well, and all the pedestrian crossing points were controlled. It is also worth noting that everyone on site was wearing head torches and banksmen were using traffic light torches as set down in our Worcestershire Highways night working risk assessmernt.

Worcestershire Asphalt Production Update.

We have now been producing asphalt using our depot based asphalt recycler at Stanford for three weeks.Juan and Stewart have now perfected a blend of recycled product that makes an excellent 20mm base course for use in footways.


We are now also producing a 6mm product for ART pothole use.


Pictures show John Churchill and Rob Littleton discussing the quality of the 6mm and Juan checking the temperature of the product.

Annual Cricket Match.

The annual WCC/Ringway cricket contest will take place on Wednesday 14th September 4.30pm start, at Defford Road, Pershore.

Food and refreshments will be provided and if it is anything like last year it will be a very enjoyable night.

All interested Ringway players please let Jackie know.

Depot based asphalt plant starts production.

Our depot based asphalt recycler started production yesterday supplying tarmac to our county wide footway gangs.

Stuart Shuck is in charge of production and although it is very early days the material produced looked to be a very high quality.

Contract Update.

During the past week there have been some great examples of excellent standards being set in Worcestershire.

The new method of pedestrian management is in operation on all our surfacing sites and great credit goes to Mike Carr and his team for ensuring that our sites set standards for others to follow.

Congratulations to Melvyn Trigg for the excellent standards of workmanship and health and safety on a footway scheme in Worcester.

We have also seen some great examples of "value added" in particular by the traffic management teams who carry out additional tasks to enhance the network.

On a sadder note two members of staff have suffered bereavements, our sympathy and support goes out to Jackie and Chris G.

Lucy and Tracey are both leaving us shortly for pastures new, we wish them both every success in the future.

Our new paver.

This week we took delivery of a brand new paver for use in Worcestershire.

We have chosen this size of machine to enable us to deliver a quality service for smaller schemes such as patching, but also to have the flexibility to also deal with traditional size works

New recycling initiatives.

In the last month we have introduced two new recycling processes aimed at reducing the quantity of blacktop we purchase.

We are now recycling on site the arisings produced from the "three million footway project". We are using a Bagella asphalt recycler, and initially this will be used on five schemes recycling on site in excess of 1000 tonnes of footway binder course.

We have also introduced an infra red patching process to repair carriageway defects. Fred White, Tim Cooper and Paul Chadwick are deliveing "The Fastpatch" process, and achieving excellent results.

Worcestershire Highways take delivery of new 28 tonne hooklift wagon.

Today we have taken delivery of our new 28 tonne hooklift wagon. The existing vehicle has given 5 years excellent service and has been cared for by Wayne Lunnon.

This vehicle is crucial to our highway maintenance service in Worcestershire moving vast quantities of recyclable material to Stanford and transferring the end product out to depots and sites. With this new vehicle we also have the capability to move small plant and equipment around the County.

Ringway/WCC Golf Match

Forget the Grand prix, the tennis or the football, the main event of the weekend was the Ringway/WCC golf match held at Ombersley Golf Club.

The match featured two teams of highly tuned athletes who competed keenly to the last hole with Ringway proving too strong and this year lifting the trophy. Notable performers on the day were Hughie and Chris Walsh and Martin Hunt for WCC.

Worcestershire safety score for May.

The Worcestershire safety score for the month May shows a slight dip in performance compared to April. We had no lost time incidents in May and one cable strike at Knightwick Bridge. The main reason for the dip in performance was the failure of some Supervisors to carry out their safety inspections and nine step audits. Can we all ensure the required number of audits are carried out and site safety standards are maintained or even improved.

During June Mike Henderson will be delivering training on the new "Nine Step Audit" procedure.

Fuel Target June 2011.

With oil prices on the rise again please be mindful of the need to shop around for fuel.

Worcestershire prototype of innovative "stop and go" board.

Phil Burns and his traffic management team received a near miss detailing how a motorist became confused at a stop and go traffic controlled site. The motorist saw the sign saying "go" at the far end of the site as his signal to go rather than the sign at the near end still reading "stop".

Phil and his team has developed a prototype stop and go board which always displays a courtesy sign on the rear avoiding confusion. We will be carrying out as trial during the next few weeks and monitoring motorists reaction.

Worcestershire Highways support Help for Heroes.

Yesterday, Ed Moore, Chairman of Worcestershire County Council, presented a £1400 cheque to "Help for Heroes" on behalf of Worcestershire Highways. The money was raised by Ringway staff donating their Innovation Award monies won at the Ringway Innovation awards in October 2010. The Worcesterhire contract collected awards in eight of the eleven categories available, a fantastic achievement.

Help for Heroes will be represented at the Throckmorton Air Show on Saturday 11th June and would welcome your support.

Congratulations to Worcester Warriors.

Bill was one of many employees from Worcestershire Highways who were present at Sixways last night to celebrate The Warriors returning to their rightful place in the Premier League.

Youth Opportunities Day - Worcestershire.

Yesterday Ringway took part in the Youth Opportunity Day held at County Hall. As in previous years we are looking to recruit apprentices for both the fleet contract and the term maintenance contract. Information posters will be displayed shortly, for more details contact your manager or Hughie Walsh.

May 2011 Health and Safety.

Our "monthly health and safety check" score has recovered from the dip that we suffered in April. The score is worked out by grouping together all the data that we measure monthly to monitor safety performance.

We have returned to our high standards and have had no incidents last month and no service strikes. The only "failure" has been the drop in "near miss" reporting which we need to improve.

On Thursday 26th May we have Eurovia World Safety Day. In Worcestershire the event will take place at Worcester Rugby Club and will be split into two half day sessions. We will provide more details shortly, but a significant part of the day will focus on the need to report near misses.

2011 Surface Dressing off to a flying start in Worcestershire.

The start of this years surface dressing season has brought with it glorious April weather. The team here in Worcestershire are working dawn to dusk and works are progressing extremely well. Today work is taking place in the South of the County around Baughton.

Fuel Saving Suggestions.

This month we have had two suggestion scheme ideas for saving fuel from Norman Taylor and Neil Babbington.

It is great to see that everyone is aware of the need to save fuel . We will be following up their ideas and would welcome any other thoughts on fuel economy.

April 2011 Fuel Target.

Once again the cost of diesel has risen steeply in the month, increasing 4p from March.

We all need to take positive actions to cut our fuel costs.

1. Question if the journey is necessary.

2. Reduce our average speed by 5mph.

3. Do not leave vehicles with their engines running on site and in depots.

4. Ensure vehicles are not carrying unnecessary load.

5. Vehicle share where possible.

Left the building

Paul willetts has left the building,

Winner of Eurostar tickets

Ian Bamforth draws a lucky ticket from the bag at Lydiate Ash and the winner is....... Colin Redmond from Newlands Depot.

Vinci Day Update.

The remaining winners of the champagne are,

Tony Barney - Warndon

David Pritchard - Stanford

Colin Redmond - Newlands

Overall there were 19 correct answers. They will go in to the prize draw this afternoon.

We will announce the winner of the Eurostar tickets later today.