Health and Safety

The asbestos removal industry is finally making progress towards protecting female workers from predatory behaviour, campaigners have said. Asbestos analysts, whose job is to independently check the substance has been removed properly from buildings, have warned for years that industry and regulator policies are leaving them at risk of sexual…

Industry figures have called for clarity around product-marking regulations after the government signalled it may allow alignment with European standards to continue. This week’s King’s Speech, the first under Sir Keir Starmer's premiership, contained plans to bring forward a Product Safety and Metrology Bill. Background papers published after the speech…

The director of a building contractor has been fined after he hit an employee while reversing a lorry. Peter O’Hare, who is both a director and worker at County Down-based Peter O’Hare Ltd, caused an employee to suffer “serious crush injuries” in the incident, which took place in November 2022,…

Avant Homes (Scotland) Ltd has been fined £333,000 after a man was crushed by falling concrete blocks on a site in South Lanarkshire.  Conor Joseph Morgan was an HGV driver delivering materials to Shott Farm in High Blantyre, a site overseen by Avant Homes (Scotland) Ltd, when the incident happened…

Construction worker fatalities in the UK are 70 per cent higher than before the Covid pandemic, according to the latest annual statistics from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Data for the year to 31 March 2024 showed that 51 construction workers died in accidents – 37 per cent of…

The number of Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigations into falls from height in construction has dropped starkly, Construction News can reveal. Prospect, the union representing HSE inspectors, warned that the organisation has scaled back its investigations across all types and abolished its construction division. Data obtained by CN under…

A Reading-based contractor has been fined £30,000 after the death of a delivery driver. Father of four Levi Alleyne, known as Chunky, was electrocuted while delivering crushed concrete to a construction site where BBM Contracts was principal contractor. He died after the crane arm of his lorry came into contact…

A coroner has warned about the safety of remote-controlled loader cranes after a father of two was crushed to death. Bolton-born driver Michael Harrison died in February 2021, aged 42, after the crane arm he was using to unload scaffolding came down on him. Harrison had been operating the loader…

A small North East contractor has been fined after a 16-year-old worker was exposed to asbestos.  The unnamed teenager was working for P Turnbull Joinery & Building Services Ltd when exposed to the potentially cancer-causing material in June 2021, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).  The Wolsingham-based contractor…

Parliamentary authorities expect to spend nearly £2m on procuring a contractor to repair the Palace of Westminster’s tallest structure, the Victoria Tower, after botching the first tender. Construction News revealed in April that the tender for the £95m job had to be re-run after errors were made in documents used…