Stand-off over demolition safety

Leaders of the demolition industry have reached a legal impasse with the Health and Safety Executive over the interpretation of the CDM regulations and how they should be applied to demolition work.

The HSE solicitor has now formally confirmed the executive's previously expressed opinion that demolition and dismantling work is only notifiable to the HSE under the CDM regulations if the work will last more than 30 days or involve more than 500 person days of construction work.

Both demolition operatives represented by the TUC and employers in the National Federation of Demolition Contractors argue that it was always intended that the regulations should require all demolition work to be notifiable irrespective of the size of the job.

And Tom Mellish, TUC health and safety officer, wrote to the HSE's construction advisory committee (Coniac) earlier this year arguing that this was the correct interpretation of the regulations as they stand.

The HSE had claimed that a requirement to notify all demolition sites would impose an impossible additional administrative burden. But it agreed to take legal advice from its solicitors.

Mellish commented this week: "It looks as if we have a solicitors' Mexican stand-off here. Rather than continuing a fruitless legal battle, we may now have to wait for the full scale review of the CDM regulations.

"Neither the unions nor the leading lights on the employer side are happy with the HSE's interpretation. There is a notable degree of unity over this. And the parties will continue to make strong representations to ministers to press their case.

"It remains a very important point in an inherently dangerous sector of construction that the notifiability of all demolition work would at least begin to give us a more accurate gauge of the scale of the problem."

George Henderson, national secretary of the TGWU, added: "If this legal view of CDM is correct, then we must press the Health and Safety Commission to change the regulations to ensure that all demolition work is notifiable. That was always the intention.

"If this is not done, then demolition will continue to be open to exploitation by the worst kind of cowboys. It is all the more necessary because of the high degree of health hazard associated with asbestos in demolition work."