John Graham Ltd has begun construction work on the new Banbridge Academy, in a project that is paving the way for health and safety excellence.

Completion of the project, which includes a new science, CDT and home economics wing, a new assembly hall, as well as a new gym and dining hall, is due by spring 2011.

Difficulty has arisen during the construction project as work is taking place on the grounds of an operational school, with hundreds of children each day coming within close proximity to the site and having to cross the site access road in two different locations.

This was a challenge that Graham faced head on. The firm has health and safety taken extremely seriously for both the school users and also the site employees.

In order to reduce the risk to children it was decided to change the foundation solution from mass fill pad foundations to vibro stone columns.

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This change eliminated the need to excavate significant amounts of material and then fill the resulting hole with concrete.

These changes meant that over 1,000 lorry movements on and off the site were eliminated.

The company is one of the first in Ireland to employ a full-time Behavioural Safety Advisor, whose sole role within the company is to work with all sites, using the Banbridge Academy

Behavioural Based Safety is a relatively new field of science, drawing on psychology to improve business practice.

Gerard O'Hare, Project Manager, said: "First of all we have established mobile-phone zones on site. In the same way that they are a distraction to drivers, they can be a distraction on a construction site."

Andrew Cooke, Environmental Quality and Safety Director, said: "We are trialling behavioural based safety in an attempt to instil a safety ethos so that workers will observe safety measures, not because they fear the inevitable disciplinary consequences of failing to do so, but rather because they recognise and accept it as the right thing to do."

Behavioural Safety Advisor, Stuart Kernaghan, has visited the site on numerous occasions and the staff and all operatives have been briefed on what behavioural safety is.

George Heaney, Director of Constructing Excellence in Northern Ireland, said: "The lessons learned here will be fed out to other Graham projects, and Constructing Excellence will be compiling a series of reports that will be made publicly."

(PR/JM)