Local authorities, industry leaders, contractors and the supply chain came together to discuss solutions in answer to the challenges of road worker abuse.
Over 150 attended the Stamp It Out Summit, held at the House of Lords yesterday (13th June) to confirm a way forward to tackling the abuse, which continues to get worse.
Chaired by Phil Clifton, MD of Balfour Beatty Highways, delegates heard that in the last week alone, 50% of roadworkers have admitted they have been abused in some way, with 70% experiencing the same in the last month. Also, 80% of Roadworkers admitted they do not report abuse as they feel that nothing will be done about it.
Stamp It Out statistics also highlighted that there are 300 cases of incursions and abuse reported monthly. But just 1 in 5 of those incidents is reported with an estimate figure of 1,500 cases per month or 18,000 a year on the UK road network.
The industry-led collective has a plan to eradicate the abuse which includes; changing public perception, enabling real-time reporting for all, creating conflict avoidance training for the workforce, delivering a Respect Our Roadworkers week of events and communications and focusing on designing out risk form work sites.
Subject to funding, Stamp It Out, will work with a number of media partners including Global Radio, to deliver different region and local campaigns to help highlight the challenges around abuse and to achieve maximum engagement.
Kevin Robinson, Project Leader of Stamp It Out said: “The ground-swell of support shown by industry leaders towards Stamp It Out truly demonstrates to everyone we put to work on the public highway that we have a steadfast resolution to ensure that everybody irrespective of job title, goes home safe every day. We need to be prioritising the wellbeing of our workforce and Stamp It Out aims to achieve that and much more in the future.”
