One in a million safety standard for Olympic projects

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) today published a Health, Safety and Environment (H&SE) Standard that will govern health and safety performance on projects for the London 2012 Olympics.

The Standard was launched by Jack Lemley, chairman of the ODA, at an East Midlands meeting on the UK tour of the '2012 Roadshow'.

Lemley said: "THe ODA HS&E Standard is a key building block to ensuring the health and safety of all workers involved in constructing the Olympic venues. We want to minimise risk for construction workers, facility users and legacy maintenance staff and make the London 2012 Games healthier and safer by design."

Olympic projects will be expected to achieve a safety target of no more than one reportable incident for every million man hours worked. Unsafe practices and unhealthy working conditions will be subject to a zero-tolerance policy, and health and safety performance will be measured against strict targets. Both the targets and performance records will be made publicly available.

As previously reported by Contract Journal, the ODA has also committed to a 100% CSCS card holder rate for workers on all sites.

In addition to safety targets, the Standard also states that all construction workers involved in the programme should be given acess to health checks and help for any conditions identified. Lemley added: "This Standard is as much about promoting health as it is about reducing risk and injury."