A quarter of small sites shut down

A quarter of small sites shut down

Safety inspectors have been forced to stop work on 1-in-4 small building sites during an inspection blitz across London. Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors are to continue the enforcement blitz of small refurbishment sites over the next few weeks. So far, close to 25 per cent of the 150 small construction sites visited have had prohibition notices served on them. These stop some or all of the site activities because of an immediate risk to workers. HSE principal inspector Andrew Beal said: 'Finding such poor work practices that we had to issues prohibition notices on nearly one in four sites is unacceptable, especially when many of the incidents are completely avoidable by taking common sense actions and precautions.' HSE figures show there have been 59 fatalities in London between 2004/2005 and 2009/2010, 30 resulting from falls. Over 70 per cent of the deaths caused by a fall occurred on small sites, says HSE. Government plans to reform health and safety regulation and enforcement include measures to exempt small firms from certain risk assessment and other requirements. Unions have argued this is a dangerous mistake as small firms are over-represented in the most hazardous sectors, notably construction, agriculture and transport, and are frequently the ones that benefit most from the support of a properly resourced health and safety enforcement agency. It is feared drastic cuts in HSE's budget will mean the volume of preventive inspections will fall dramatically.

HSE news release and blitz statistics. Construction Enquirer.