Schools look into shutdown safety

Murco - 2009-04-29

A school choir may write and record a song to help a Pembrokeshire oil refinery raise safety awareness during its shutdown next year.

The novel idea was one of many suggested by schools across Pembrokeshire when the Murco Milford Haven Refinery set them the challenge of formulating a communications strategy for the 2010 shutdown.

An information workshop at Haverfordwest, led by Pembrokeshire County Council education support officer, Carole Evans, and supported by a team from Murco, encouraged focus groups from several schools to come up with inspiring ideas for a high profile public relations campaign.

One school thought a DVD should be circulated to the local community explaining important aspects of the shutdown while another is exploring an idea based around car stickers.

The children kept most of their ideas under wraps because these will be judged by a panel later in the year with the best attracting cash prizes for the winning schools.

Lucy Tallis, senior HR adviser at Murco, said the refinery was very keen to adopt the best ideas to communicate safety messages to workers and the local community.

“If we think the ideas are good enough we will use them next year and we will invite the winners to come on site to see how we have put those into practice,’’ she said.

The £26 million shutdown will involve a workforce of 1,000 contractors. It will begin next January and will take eight weeks to complete.