RIDBA signs up it's first Faset Fans

Frame building specialists RIDBA (the Rural and Industrial Design and Building Association) is celebrating its first group of contractors winning accreditation from FASET, the trade association and training body for the safety net rigging and fall arrest industry.

Six erectors employed by RIDBA corporate member AJ Lowther and Son were trained over a day by a FASET-accredited net rigging instructor in a scheme designed to reassure farmers and clients who are liable under Construction Design and Management (CDM) regulations to use a contractor competent in health and safety.

This entitles the erectors to a RIDBA trainee net rigger card valid for one year. After six months they are then assessed on site to GSA 1 standard, and if successful, will be entitled to a RIDBA experienced net rigger card valid for five years.

RIDBA teamed up with FASET to offer its corporate members, who already abide by the organisation’s own Code of Practice, the opportunity to further raise standards in the field of framed building construction, a sector worth more than £2 billion.

Corporate members such as AJ Lowther, a third-generation family business based in Herefordshire, have helped RIDBA to gather unparalleled detailed knowledge of the function and environmental requirements of modern agricultural and industrial buildings and their siting, planning, design and construction.

AJ Lowther managing director Antony Lowther said: "Adding the FASET training and assessment to RIDBA’s own Code of Practice is intended to make life safer for our employees and easier for our customers who have previously found it difficult to assess the health and safety competence of building contractors.

"Certainly, while all our erectors are experienced net riggers trained under other schemes, they all commented that regulations had tightened up a lot since their last training and they all benefited from the FASET course."

ENDS

Pictured from right: RIDBA chairman Adam Minshall presents Antony Lowther with the first net rigging training cards to be issued under the new scheme with FASET.