Symphotech Hires Safety Experts

Event safety company Symphotech strengthens its offices in the North West and South West of England with four new appointments.

Joining the Liverpool office up north are Eddy Grant as legal and safety consultant and Graham Picken as safety consultant. Among other things, Grant has overseen health and safety on a variety of events including The London 2012 Summer Olympics and the Tour de France 2014. Grant also helped produce the Purple Guide, a dossier for industry professionals on issues concerning health and safety at events.

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Grant, a senior lecturer and Chartered Fellow of Higher Education Academy, will lead a lot of the safety training courses Symphotec will be offering in 2017. Picken is a former member of Merseyside Police, where he oversaw many major events, including the homecoming parades of Liverpool’s and Everton’s football clubs. He specializes in crowd safety management and crowd dynamics.

Grant and Picken have a combined industry experience of more than 46 years. Joining and heading up the South West office near Devon & Somerset is Duncan White as lead consultant for event fire and crowd safety. During his 30 plus years as fire officer he was, among other things, responsible for the event safety management team of the Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service.

He helped produce the fire safety chapters of the Purple Guide and was responsible for managing the fire service response to Glastonbury Festival, The Green Gathering Festival, NASS Festival and Yeovilton Air Day. Also joining Symphotech’s South West office as fire and event safety consultant is Peter Golding, who also worked at the Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service, where he gained more than 25 years of technical fire safety experience.

His new role will see him undertaking fire safety risk assessments for permanent venues including theatres, concert venues and warehouses. Golding and White will design and deliver event and fire safety training for Symphotech.

“The new team has already worked on a number of high profile events, including the New Years Eve events in Rotterdam, and their appointment reflects Symphotech’s commitment to offering clients the highest standard of event safety,” said Will Hodgson, the company’s director of health and safety.

He added that he was “excited about the future of Symphotech and confident that these new appointments will be a tremendous asset in driving our continued growth.”