We continued our Safety Stand Down tour today, bringing together over 200 of our people for a powerful and engaging session focused on safety, performance, and the year ahead.

Our Group Business Director, Thomas Walsh, opened the day with a review of 2025 performance and set out our priorities and expectations for 2026, reinforcing the standards, behaviours, and focus required as we move forward. Tom was supported by Amy O’Connor & Gavin O’Connor, co-Managing Directors – all leading from the front on our critical safety messages.

Matt Normyle, our H&S Manager, then reviewed our 2025 safety performance metrics, explained the rationale behind our 2026 targets, and shared two recent safety contacts that were particularly sobering — clearly highlighting the real risks our teams face every day and why getting safety right matters.

Luke Holden, our Electrical Operations Manager, covered topics from auditing, planning, operational organisation, future development and apprenticeships. Our jointing apprenticeships have been a real success in 2025; 5 new jointers mates made & on with service jointing training now. We’re keen to go again in spring 2026, with our next cohort.

Jason Singleton, Head of Operations, talks to the team about Logistics; Plant and transport with the main focus being on plant & vehicle movement plans in our operational yards.

We were also fortunate to welcome an excellent guest speaker, Murray Peat from Linesearch for Fischer German, who delivered an impactful session on pipelines in the UK, the dangers of operating near them, and the very real consequences that can occur when planning and operational processes fail. A huge Thanks to Murray, this was a great delivery.

The afternoon then moved into five engagement pods, rotating teams through focused sessions covering:

These sessions created open, honest dialogue between leaders, managers, and operatives — allowing us to address challenges directly, identify development opportunities, highlight efficiencies, and discuss how we collectively overcome the pressures and risks we face in 2026 and beyond.

Tom closed the day by reflecting on the strength of the discussions and raising a glass (water) in memory of Anthony ‘The Hog’ Gallagher, who sadly passed away at the end of 2025. He will be remembered by all of us at Opus Group (NW).

We now look forward to the feedback from our teams as we continue to learn, improve, and move forward together.

Well done to all the team who supported in the preparation, main presentations & the pods.