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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