Mecsafe Limited

Health & Safety Training

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01302 775900
Unit 9 Snape Lane Industrial Estate, Harworth, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN11 8SP

Has the rise impacted you?

Some positive news… Wages rose at the fastest pace in nearly a decade in the three months to September, Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show. Compared with a year earlier, wages excluding bonuses, rose by 3.2% – the biggest rise since the end of 2008 and up slightly on the previous quarter.

Followed by some not so positive… However, the ONS warned that real wage growth was below the 2015 level. The unemployment total went up for the first time this year, rising by 21,000 in the same period to 1.38 million. Click here for the full story.

I’m a Celebrity 2018 line-up revealed! ITV confirms 10 names, including Actor John Barrowman, football manager Harry Redknapp and TV presenter Nick Knowles.

Stars pay tribute to Marvel Comics pioneer, Stan Lee, who has died at 95.

 

In construction news this week…

Pre-construction work starts on £1bn Silvertown Tunnel. Structural and environmental monitoring is now underway on the site of the 1.4km twin-bore road tunnel.

Plan for Sheffield’s tallest building approved. Property owner Turner Investments has gained outline planning for the redevelopment of Midcity House in Sheffield city centre.

Spurs strike deal to use Wembley for whole season. Tottenham Hotspur have agreed a deal to use Wembley Stadium for the remainder of the season as a back-stop in the event of further delays handing over their new ground.

 

In MECsafe news this week…

We still have plenty of availability on the following courses:

UKATA Asbestos Awareness – 19th November 2018

H&S Awareness – 20th November 2018 (ask us about completing your CSCS test on the same day)!

CCNSG Safety Passport – 22nd & 23rd November 2018

If you would like any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

It’s been ages!

We’ve been very busy at MECsafe over the last few months, hence no blog! Primarily, improving our NVQ portfolio has been taking up a lot of our time, but it has been worth it, as we are now able to offer you the following NVQ’s:

Level 2
– Construction Operations
– Decorative Finishing and Painting
– Formwork
– Interior Systems (Dry Lining Fixing)
– Cranes & Specialist Lifting
– Forklift Trucks
– Plastering (Solid)
– Steelfixing Occupations
– Trowel Occupations (Bricklaying)
– Wood Occupations (Site Carpentry)

Level 3
– Decorative Finishing and Painting
– Occupational Work Supervision
– Plastering (Solid)

Level 4
– Site Supervision

Level 6
– Construction Contracting Ops
– Site Management

Level 7
– Construction Senior Management

 

We’ve also been scheduling lots of courses at Doncaster, including:

UKATA Asbestos Awareness – 1st Oct

CCNSG – 1st & 2nd Oct

IPAF scissor lift & cherry picker – 1st Oct

If you need an NVQ for a CSCS card or simply just for CPD etc.  or would like to book on a training course, please contact us 01302 775900 ext 1.

 

Anyway, enough about us, let’s talk about general news this week:

The NHS to save ‘hundreds of millions’ in landmark drug ruling. Novartis and Bayer were trying to stop NHS doctors from prescribing a cheaper treatment for a serious eye condition. Health bosses said the judgement in the High Court may reduce the power of companies to set prices. Drug company Novartis said they were “disappointed” because patients were being asked to accept an unlicensed treatment to save the NHS money. The case centred on the treatment of patients with the common eye condition, wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Facebook will no longer send employees to work at the offices of political campaigns during elections, the company has announced. The social network used to offer dedicated staff to political campaigns to help them develop their online advertising campaigns. Donald Trump’s digital director for the 2016 presidential election has said Facebook’s assistance helped him win. Facebook said rival Hillary Clinton was offered the same support, but declined. The social network is the second largest online advertising broker, behind Google.

In construction news this week…

Are safety fines are getting out of control? Galliford Try and Costain were fined £1.4m each this week after a worker lost three toes at a water treatment plant.

Caddick takes workforce plastic-free. Caddick Construction is pushing to become a single-use plastic free workforce by handing out reusable water bottles across the Yorkshire company.

 

That’s all for now folks!

 

England v Colombia

Following Germany and Spain’s shock eliminations, no previous winners now stand between England and the World Cup final. Now, Gareth Southgate’s team are the second highest-ranked side in their half of the draw, behind sixth-placed Switzerland.

This means one of England, Colombia, Sweden, Switzerland, Croatia or Russia will definitely be in the Moscow final on 15 July.

Not that anybody should be getting too carried away – this is England, and a record of two World Cup knockout stage wins since 1990 makes for grim reading.

In construction news this week…

Skanska Papworth hospital job fails cladding check. Skanska has suffered a major setback on its £165m Papworth hospital project after flammable cladding was found fitted to the building.

M&E specialist Lorne Stewart suffers £8.5m loss. Building services specialist Lorne Stewart has counted the cost of problem contracts suffering a £8.5m loss last year.

Kier terminates Mackintosh building contract. Kier and the Glasgow School of Art have both mutually agreed to terminate the Mackintosh building contract following the devastating fire.

In MECsafe news this week…

We still have plenty of availability on the following courses:

Health & Safety Awareness – 11th July 2018 (ask us about completing your CSCS test after the course)!

SMSTS Refresher – 12th & 13th July 2018

UKATA Asbestos Awareness – 16th July 2018

If you would like any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

First Blog in a while!

The Prime Minister is expected to face fierce criticism in the Commons today as she defends her decision to bomb Syria without consulting MPs. Theresa May will reiterate her belief that the overnight strikes on chemical weapons plants was in Britain’s “national interest”. Opposition members, including Jeremy Corbyn, have questioned why Mrs May gave the go-ahead to the strikes without Parliamentary approval.

On a slightly different note – Is drinking wine good or bad for you?
Bon viveurs have been left reeling by reports that drinking ten glasses of wine a week can shorten life expectancy by two years.
Or to put it another way, you lose “15 minutes of life for each unit above the safe amount, the equivalent of smoking a cigarette”, says The Daily Telegraph’s science editor Sarah Knapton.
The warning comes in a study led by the University of Cambridge and the British Heart Foundation that makes for sobering reading.
In construction news this week…

BAM wins £90m King’s Cross office deal for Argent. Bam Construction has secured another major office scheme for developer Argent in the wake of Carillion’s collapse.

Carillion collapse hits 2018 commercial property lending. The collapse of Carillion is being blamed for a unexpected 4% fall in lending to the commercial property sector in January to £4.1bn.

SME contractors agree 3.1% pay rise deal. Employers and unions have agreed a one-year pay rise deal of 3.1% under the Building and Allied Trades Joint Industrial Council (BATJIC) agreement.

In MECsafe news this week…

We still have plenty of availability on the following courses:

H&S Awareness (required for the green Labourers CSCS card) – 25th April 2018

SSSTS Refresher – 27th April 2018

UKATA Asbestos Awareness – 30th April 2018

If you would like any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

Happy New Year!

We hope you all had a lovely Christmas and 2018 has got off to a great start!

A cabinet shuffle is often the chance to reassert a prime minister’s authority and refresh a party’s image. But Theresa May’s reshuffle didn’t go exactly to plan when several cabinet ministers refused to move, according to sources. Education Secretary Justine Greening refused to be transferred and handed in her resignation and Jeremy Hunt is said to have kept his role after “persuading” Mrs May not to move him. To further complicate things, the Conservative party tweeted out Chris Grayling as the new chairman, when the role actually went to the immigration minister Brandon Lewis.

Brighton left it late to beat rivals Crystal palace 2-1 in the third round of the FA Cup, after striker Glenn Murray scored the winning goal in the dying minutes. The FA Cup game marked the debut for the new Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology, which is a new system designed to keep referee mistakes to a minimum. The VAR will only intervene when the referee makes a clear and obvious error. But in last night’s cup tie, the new system remained unused despite Murray’s controversial winning goal which looked like he handballed into the net.

Nearly 200,00 Salvadorans face deportation from the United States by September 2019 after the Trump administration ended special protection status for people from the Central American country. The decision made by the Homeland Security will have a heavy impact on parts of New York, Los Angeles and New York with a large Salvadoran community.

 

In construction news this week…

Health fears raised over construction nanotechnologies. Tiny particles in building materials could pose asbestos-style dangers.

Jailed payroll cheats ordered to pay back £3.5m within 3 months or serve longer prison terms and still owe the money. Accountant Aquil Ahmed, 61, and construction services company director Victor Shearer, 44 were jailed in October 2016 after they cheated HM Revenue and Customs of £6.9m in VAT, income tax, National Insurance Contributions and Construction Industry Scheme deductions.

Huge blaze hits Balfour Bristol university site. Balfour Beatty started on site early last year on a £19m contract to renovate and extend the Grade II listed building.

 

In MECsafe news this week…

We still have plenty of availability on the following courses:

PASMA (Mobile Towers) – 15th Jan 2018

SSSTS (Supervisors) – 18th & 19th Jan 2018

UKATA Asbestos Awareness – 22nd Jan 2018

If you would like any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Will Russia’s absence spoil Ukraine’s Eurovision party?

Performers from 42 countries strode down a long red carpet near Ukraine’s parliament this week, as a curtain-raiser to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

But one nation, Russia, was missing.

For the first time in Eurovision history, the host nation barred another country’s singer!

In 2015, in violation of Ukrainian border rules, Russia’s Julia Samoilova performed in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia a year earlier.

Russian MP Vitaly Milonov has said “I think it’s a stupid reaction. They’re even afraid of such a small girl to enter Kiev.”

You can follow coverage of Eurovision here and find out more on the Ukraine/Russia stand off here.

 

In construction news this week…

Cemex drivers vote for strike action over pay. Major projects like Mersey Gateway and Heathrow could be hit by shortages of construction materials after HGV drivers at Cemex UK voted for industrial action in a dispute over pay.

Small contractors have 15% of turnover tied-up in late payments. A shock survey of SME contractors shows construction companies have an average of 15.4% of their annual turnover hit by late payment.

Race starts for £20m Silverstone motor racing museum. Contractors are being called to the grid to bid for a £20m motor racing museum at Silverstone race track in Northampton.

In MECsafe news this week…

We still have plenty of availability on the following courses:

  • Health & Safety Awareness – 16th May (ask us about completing your CSCS test after the course)!
  • UKATA Asbestos Awareness – 18th May

If you would like any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

New this week!

Firstly a huge congratulations and well done to our British swimmers over in Rio – Adam Peaty and Jazz Carlin! Both are proof with hard work, determination and training you can go a long way! Hopefully these will be first of many medals to come home, all the best to the rest of team GB out there 🙂

Now, for all the latest construction news…

Bam Nuttall is in pole position to build a £300m tidal barrage project that is attracting interest from major pension funds.

A Hertfordshire-based home improvement company has been fined after the unsafe removal of asbestos material from a domestic property.
St Albans Magistrates’ Court heard how Ace of Hearts Home Improvement Limited (AOH) removed asbestos containing materials (ACM) from a domestic property in St Albans. Click here for full article.
If you would like UKATA Asbestos training, please call us on 01302 775900.

And finally, A new technique deep under London in Crossrail’s 42km of tunnels has seen how 3D scanning can be ‘unwrapped’ into 2D to rapidly speed up preparation for drilling. Click here for more info.