EJ McGrath Hosts VR Spill Awareness Training with Galliford Try

Our Weston-super-Mare office traded desks for headsets this week as the team took part in an immersive virtual reality training session on spill awareness, delivered in partnership with Galliford Try.

Rather than sitting through slides, operatives were placed inside realistic on-site scenarios — fuel, oil and chemical spills — and had to spot the hazard, contain it and respond correctly in real time. The VR environment lets crews make decisions, and mistakes, with no real-world consequences, which makes the learning stick far better than a classroom session ever could.

Spill awareness matters to us. As a civils and groundworks contractor working in sensitive and live environments — including sites close to watercourses and drainage networks — getting spill response right protects the environment, keeps us compliant, and avoids the cost and programme disruption a pollution incident brings. Knowing where the spill kits are and how to use them quickly is the difference between a contained nuisance and a notifiable event.

We’re grateful to Galliford Try for hosting the session and bringing this technology to our team. It’s a genuine example of a Tier 1 contractor and its supply chain pulling in the same direction on environmental performance and safety culture.

Investing in our people and the way we train them is something we take seriously — and judging by the focus in the room, the headsets went down well.