Construction Sector
HSE reveals safety failings at basement construction sites
Health & Safety update 01/12/2011
Health and Safety Executive officers (HSE) recently visited
basement construction sites across London and discovered serious
safety failings at over a third of them.
One hundred and nine sites located across Wandsworth,
Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster
were visited in November in a bid to improve safety standards at
such sites.
The HSE inspectors served a total of 76 enforcement notices
regarding safety failings, and took enforcement action at 40
sites.
Inspectors were even forced to close four construction sites due
to the level of safety failure taking place. The most common safety
failing – which accounted for 50 per cent of the prohibition
notices - was found to be relating to the risk of workers falling
from height, either through unprotected floor openings or into
unfenced excavations.
Following the inspections, a free event is to be held by the HSE
at Wandsworth Town Hall on 19 January next year in order to build
awareness amongst designers, contractors and project managers
involved in basement construction.
Andrew Beal, HSE principal inspector, told Workplace Law,
“Safety standards in many basement projects are well short of
acceptable, as our inspection initiative shows. Companies
constructing basements must not be complacent about the risks.”
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