Health, safety, environment and reducing risk

We safeguard the health, safety and wellbeing of our people, those who work with us and anyone affected by our works.

Protecting the environments we work in is always a top priority and we aim to leave things in a better state than when we found them.

With our accredited, award-winning systems and procedures, we go beyond legal compliance to deliver best-in-class safety, health and environmental (SHE) practice. Our core belief is that no one should suffer from ill health, (physical or mental) or an accident at work. 

Accident Frequency Rates

In 2023, we had five reportable incidents (7-day RIDDOR injury incidents) compared to 21 in 2022 (three major and 18 7-day). Our accident frequency rate (AFR) is Willmott Dixon’s lowest ever reported at 0.04 in 2023 compared to 0.15 in 2022. Our incident response procedures were followed with full communication to all stakeholders and no further action was taken. We had no prosecutions during the year.

With the last reportable incident coming in August 2023, the year ended particularly well with over 2.1 million incident-free working hours. Overall, 96% of our projects completed without reportable incidents in 2023.

* number of reportable accidents per 100,000 hours worked.  

Considerate Constructors Scheme and CLOCS

In 2023, we were partners of the Considerate Constructors Scheme. We worked with other industry leaders to raise standards and build public trust by registering our sites and ensuring they abided by the voluntary Code of Considerate Practice. This means our sites were monitored in three areas: respecting the community, caring for the environment and valuing the workforce.   

In 2023, our average score across all projects was 43.64/50 – 8% higher than the industry average. 

Considerate Constructors Scheme Score – average marks out of 50 across all projects 

Our commitment as a Champion of the Construction Logistics Community Safety (CLOCS) continued in 2023. The CLOCS Standard is the direct result of collaboration between the construction and fleet sectors to address shared issues around safety and sustainability. In 2023, there were 35 CLOCS visits across 28 projects, with an average total score of 20.64.

Risk management and compliance

We maintained an integrated risk management system for health, safety and environmental disciplines (Environmental Management System ISO14001:2015, Occupation Health and Safety management system ISO45001:2018).

Our Environmental Incident Frequency Rate increased slightly to 0.15 in 2023 from 0.1 in 2022. This measure reports the number of incidents which had the potential to cause harm to the environment per 100,000 hours worked. We had no reportable incidents or enforcement action in 2023.

Improving data security

At Willmott Dixon, we hold both ISO27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus certifications, which underline our commitment to cyber security. We have replaced or upgraded all our laptops and introduced multi-factor authentication to improve the security of our data and information. Over half of emails were filtered out before they reached our inboxes having been identified as harmful or fraudulent.

A safe and sustainable driving culture

Our people should have the knowledge and skills to stay safe on the road, and the vehicles they drive or operate should be legally compliant. In 2023, 377 drivers using fleet vehicles have dashcams. We work closely our people and TTC Group to oversee the compliance of our people as drivers and our fleet. In recognition of her outstanding work, our Group Fleet Compliance Manager, Sareen Dhillon, won Road Risk Manager of the Year 2023 at the Brake UK Fleet Champions Awards (below).

All our people undergo licence, health and roadworthiness checks before being allowed to drive for business. We also carry out an online risk assessment, evaluating each driver’s attitude, experience, knowledge, and history. And a series of eLearning modules provide information on key road safety topics such as fatigue, braking and breakdown procedures.

Fleet risk

We are members of the UK Electric Fleets Coalition and supported the fourth annual UKEFC Policy Paper, which presented Government with a series of policy recommendations to continue to drive the EV transition in the UK.