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Chartered company achieves health and safety milestone in major project

Farrans Sacyr - The Grosvenor Road entrance to the new Belfast Grand Station as the sun sets - The Grosvenor Road entrance to the station as the sun sets on the 25 of February 2025.
The new station was opened to the public in September 2024 (Image: RooneyDonal21 via Wikimedia Commons)

Farrans Sacyr, a partnership of CIOB chartered company Farrans, has reached a million hours without a health and safety incident on the main works of the Belfast Grand Central Station project.

The milestone was achieved as it passed 1,000 days since construction on the major infrastructure project began.

The new multimodal transport hub was opened to the public by operator Translink in September 2024, replacing the existing Europa and Great Victoria Street bus and rail stations.

Farrans Sacyr said health and safety has been its top priority since starting work on site.

More than 2,500 people have been inducted into the project. The project has recorded more than 12,500 training hours, over 600 ‘toolbox talks’, 7,000 daily briefings and biannual safety stand-downs. An entrance tunnel is decorated to focus on site safety and ‘getting home safe every day’.

‘A credit to everyone who has come on site’

Duane McCreadie, project director for Farrans Sacyr, said: “We are proud to have delivered one million hours without a RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations) event on the main works package of the project, and this is a credit to everyone who has come on to our site. We all have a role to play in keeping our teams safe and making sure that we all get home to our families every evening.

“To ensure a culture of safety we tried to be innovative in our approach with a focus on behaviour safety awareness initiatives, seasonal campaigns, videos and timely advice and guidance. We also wanted to focus on wellbeing and mental health with regular spin and exercise classes on site, free health screenings and weekly fruit bowls.

“We have two mental health first aiders on site and we welcomed charitable organisations such as Lighthouse in to present to our team.”

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