LEAMINGTON SPA: All of Wolseley’s UK businesses including Build Center, Plumb Center and Parts Center will again be showing their support for the HSE’s Asbestos ‘The Hidden Killer’ campaign which begins on 2nd November and runs for four weeks.
‘Asbestos: The Hidden Killer’ aims to target tradesmen who may disturb or damage asbestos as they go about their work and make sure that they are fully aware of the dangers how they can protect themselves .
Figures from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show that around a quarter of the 4000 or so people dying from asbestos-related diseases each year in Britain are tradesmen such as joiners, electricians and plumbers. About twenty lose their lives each week. What is more worrying though is the fact that the number of deaths linked to asbestos continues to rise and is expected to peak between 2010-2020.
Key to Wolseley’s involvement with the campaign has been its direct access to all types of tradespeople through its UK network of branches. This interaction helped to make the campaign such a success during 2008 as Grant Richardson sales director for Wolseley UK Heavyside said: “We had a fantastic result from the Hidden Killer campaign last year, we gave away all 100,000 information packs to customers and we also saw a huge spike in sales figures of personal protective equipment during and after the campaign showing that the tradespeople had really taken the message onboard.”
Matthieu Daney is a branch manager at Build Center in West Wickham and was closely involved in the campaign last year. He said:“At Wolseley we are a big point of contact for lots of different tradespeople from the one man businesses to bigger firms with several staff on the payroll. Awareness levels vary widely; some customers had heard about some of the dangers of asbestos but had forgotten the facts, whilst others were unaware of the latest thinking regarding precautions, so the information packs went down really well.”
