Covered
Covered
It’s the World Day for Health and Safety at Work on 28th April so we thought there was no better time than to catch up with our new Health & Safety Manager, Tony, to find out how he got into the role, what he loves about it and how it’s evolving…
I’ve got a background in welding and fabrication. It’s what I trained in and spent the first few years of my career doing. I came to Fordingbridge two years ago and started in the factory doing welding but saw this role come up and felt that my practical workshop experience would be a real plus and luckily the team at Fordingbridge agreed!
I want to create a culture in which health & safety is everyone’s role and becomes part of everyday conversation – not a ‘groan’ subject. Communications are key to creating a safe environment. Talking regularly about health & safety so everyone is alert to potential dangers prevents so many workplace accidents.
Because I’ve worked for a couple of years in our workshop, I’m also hoping to be a bridge between our workshop and office teams and bring them even closer than they are already. I think that having an appreciation of what each other does enriches working life and the end result we can produce.
I’ve seen it change so much even in the two years that I’ve been here. The scale of the projects we’re involved with is the biggest change.
When I first arrived our order books were dominated by small to medium size projects – and we still love working on those – but we’re also becoming renowned as being the canopy supplier to go to when you are looking for scale. We’re doing so many more 40m+ spans now.
We’re working with global logistics firms to provide huge all-weather retail storage solutions, with leading padel and cricket providers to provide vast all-weather play spaces and the canopies we’re designing and installing at garden centres, holiday parks and even schools are getting noticeably bigger and more ambitious.
Scale is the key one and it has a real impact on my role because obviously the bigger the canopy, the higher your installation team needs to go while on site. That comes with challenges, but that’s what makes the job interesting. There’s always a new challenge to embrace and I love the fact that our whole team has such a can-do attitude. If something comes in that we’ve never done before it’s always ‘how can we do this?’ never ‘it can’t be done’.
I think we’ll continue to see more and more padel court canopies because it’s not just padel clubs installing them now, we’re seeing rugby clubs, universities and hotel chains all waking up to the huge draw that padel is and looking to install all-weather facilities.
I think we’ll also see more people waking up to the benefits of investing in quality structures. With the whole sustainability drive, there’s a real appreciation – across all sectors – of the fact that all our structures come with a sector leading 25-year guarantee. People also appreciate the fact that the majority of the materials we use are fully recyclable at the end of their life.
For me it’s all about the people. I’ve worked at several places now but never come across one as friendly, positive and supportive as this one. Everyone is one team working to one goal and it’s a great feeling.
I also love the sense of achievement you get when you see the structures you’ve helped create come to life. It’s rewarding to see a project through from pieces in the workshop to a vast canopy shielding hundreds from the weather. I recently went to check out some new padel court canopies at Haywards Heath Rugby Club and at Maidenhead Padel and seeing our canopies in situ gets me every time. I’m always proud.
I’m a practical person and even in my spare time I love tinkering around with practical projects! At the moment, I’m bringing a rusting, ancient Micra back to life in every spare minute. Plus, I love the usual things of going to the gym with my mates and spending time in the country with my dog, Alwyn.
