health and safety

Watson Fuels works with customers and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to improve standards within our own company and throughout the fuel distribution industry as a whole.

Health and safety regulations are extensive and can be complex, but the HSE website www.hse.gov.uk provides details and advice on all aspects.

New Working at Heights regulations were introduced in 2005, which adds to previous legislation and is directly applicable to us and many of our customers. The regulations cover use of ladders, provision of working platforms, guard rails and other fall arrest systems. It also questions the need to work from height at all in many cases.

Watson Fuels is currently undertaking a substantial investment in new vehicles, equipment and facilities at our depots aimed at eliminating much of the need to work at height. Many of our depots are now equipped with the latest state of the art bottom loading facilities so that all work at the depot can be carried out at ground level. We invest heavily in our depot, vehicles and offices to ensure that our standards are kept high.

But improving our own facilities is only half the answer. We need to ensure that customers' tanks are also safe. Ideally we would like all new tanks to be installed at ground level. In the mean time existing tanks can often be easily modified to make the delivery safer.