Best Safety Moment Awards Entry: Forth Ports (1)

Award Nomination:

A safety alert (Energy Div ED09-2023) was published by the Health & Safety Executive in Sept of 2023 aimed solely at Oil & Gas Platforms / Rigs to warn of the potential for walkway grating systems to become dislodged or damaged by adverse weather. It also stated that grating systems could deteriorate over time.

The similarities of this alert was recognised to also affect grating systems used in the port industry. Most of these systems are usually at height and also directly over water, walkways and roads.

Additional Information

Giving the high potential of a grating failure in any situation, an immediate review of grating already in use took place within the Port of Leith. During this initial review it became apparent that several grating systems were in disrepair, had loose retaining clips and were being poorly managed with most employees not seeing the hazard of a failure of any grating system. The grating systems with issues were found to be mostly either above water or at height on cranes etc.

A PPT (with video clips) was quickly put together showing signs of what to look for when carrying out engineering preventative maintenance checks as well as pre use – user checks. Examples of good grating management were shown to port operators along with potential dropped object management of clips dropping from height (along with the additional knowledge that any section of grating has the potential to result in fatality).

Additional to the above work, full audit schedules were also started for all grating within the ports of Leith, Rosyth and Dundee. During these audits multiple grating clips were found to be either missing or not fully secured at all leaving sections of grating at the mercy of either weather, vibration or potential shock loading.

A Forth Ports Safety Alert was also produced and rolled out to all personnel.

This is still ongoing and will soon spread to all other Forth Ports locations.

The following documentation shows the level of focus that this has been given. From recognition of a similar safety related focus to training and employee learning and development all the way through to completion it appears to have been a successful project.