Fellside Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Station – which provides steam and power to Sellafield, in Cumbria and electricity to the National Grid – has again received prestigious safety awards.
Securing a Gold Award from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) for the 8th year in succession, Stockton headquartered px – which manages, maintains and operates the site – collected the accolade at a special ceremony in Glasgow.
The continued good practice at the power station was also recognised with the award of the site’s fourth Gold Medal – given each year to those who attain between five and nine years of continued gold level achievement.
The RoSPA Awards scheme, which receives entries from organisations from across the world, recognises achievement in health and safety management systems, including practices such as leadership and workforce involvement.
Responsible for managing and maintaining power stations, gas processing plants and fuel storage depots across the UK, px also achieved three further Gold Awards for its performance in 2019 – as well as an additional Gold Medal and a coveted Order of Distinction.
Teesside Gas Processing Plant, in the North East of England, was the site that achieved this Order of Distinction, after securing a Gold Award for the 23rd year in a row.
A Gold Award and Gold Medal were given to px Group, for five years of exceptional safety performance at sites including: Saltend Chemicals Park, near Hull, East Yorkshire; the gas fired Stallingborough CHP Plant, near Immingham, North Lincolnshire; the Port Talbot Biomass Power Plant in South Wales; Beckton Energy Combined Heat and intelligent Power (CHiP) Plant, in East London and the company’s headquarters and offices in Stockton-on-Tees.
Finally, a third Gold Award in three years for the St. Fergus Gas Processing Terminal, north of Aberdeen – and one of the country’s largest natural gas processing plants –confirmed that px would again achieve another year of RoSPA gold award wins across the board.
Paul McCann, Executive Director of Safety Health and Environment (SHE) and Risk Management with px, said: “We have an objective of zero harm to people, the environment and the assets we operate and our team puts an incredible effort into this, maintaining our reputation as a proactive business which continually achieves the highest of standards.
“Their commitment and diligence have delivered thousands of hours of incident free work which, in turn, has again been recognised by RoSPA.
“I’d like to thank all employees and contractors that work on our sites for continuing to abide by our safe working practices and for ensuring they keep themselves, their colleagues and the areas in which they work, safe.”
The 188 Megawatt Fellside CHP plant (FCHP) provides critical process steam to the adjacent Sellafield nuclear reprocessing facility and exports electricity to both Sellafield and to the National Grid.
It has been operated by px since 2004 – initially in partnership with a major engineering company. However, since June 2010 px has been solely responsible for site operations, engineering and maintenance.
Julia Small, RoSPA’s head of qualifications, awards and events, said: “The RoSPA Awards have become the key fixture in the health and safety calendar with new sponsors and new awards this year including: The Leisure Safety Awards, the Safe@Work, Safe@Home Award and the Inspiration Awards. Highly-respected, with almost 2,000 entrants every year, RoSPA award winners benefit from the wide-ranging rewards of improved sector reputation.”
