A provider of equipment rental and support services, Speedy, has this week announced that it will be standardising its fleet in order to include the award-winning Xcalibre Fall Arrest Blocks.

Created by British company Checkmate Lifting and Safety, the product, which won a Queens Award for Innovation earlier this year, effectively acts as a brake in the event of a worker falling from height. The block is attached by a wire from the worker to the building they are working on, and in the event of a fall, the wire ‘locks’ in order to decelerate the user, reducing the impact of falls from height. Unlike most blocks of this kind, Xcalibre Fall Arrest Blocks are cased in polymer, making them lighter and easier to use.

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Checkmate will provide Speedy with 1000 additional XCalibre Fall Arrest Blocks and a buy-back scheme for half of Speedy's existing blocks has been put in place. By the end of 2011, the entire Speedy fleet will have been standardised to include only this product.

Tony Longmire, Training Director at Speedy, said: "Our association with Checkmate over a number of years has helped us to ensure that we can supply the most cutting-edge, user friendly, working at height products for our customers.

"The Xcalibre is a fine example of British innovation, and will soon be provided as standard across our fleet. We put health and safety at the heart of everything we do at Speedy, and we're confident that this piece of equipment will prevent many falls from height in the workplace."

(CD)