May 22, 2002—Half of the London construction sites visited in a week-long safety blitz were so dangerous the UKs Health and Safety Executive closed them down. Enforcement action was taken against almost two-thirds of the sites visited. Of the 223 construction sites that were inspected during the blitz, 110 were served with prohibition notices.
Unsafe work was stopped on nearly half the sites visited for issues such as a failure to provide proper fall protection and a lack of welfare facilities. A further 11 improvement notices were issued, most for inadequate welfare facilities.
Barry Mullen, the inspector who led the blitz, said: “Inspectors served notices where there was an immediate risk to people’s health and safety though the underlying cause of the problems related to issues such as end of job pressures, poor consideration of health and safety issues in design, failure by main and sub-contractors to identify obvious risks and implement safe systems of work, and inadequate project arrangements for health and safety by clients and developers.’
Based on a report from WorkplaceLaw.net
