Quarries face Work at Height ban on non-conforming kit

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors are threatening to issue improvement notices on the plant used in quarries, even as industry representatives met the chairman of the ISO committee looking into access and egress from machines.

Rory Graham, director of health, safety and training for Foster Yeoman, said the talks are taking on a sense of urgency as the HSE is applying the Work at Height (WAH) regulations to mobile plant.

"The HSE has every right to apply WAH – it is the law of the land – but the machines were not designed to meet those rules," he said.

He highlighted the problem of a narrow walkway on a dump truck preventing the door fully opening. The guardrails have been cut to allow the door to fully open, giving rise to the potential to fall through the gap. "If a person falls off the machine, it is us who will be prosecuted," Graham said.

"We will have to spend thousands of pounds to put right this design fault," he said.

"Why isn’t the HSE asking the manufacturer to design a retrofit that will allow the machine to meet the law." However, he was pleased that through ISO, the manufacturers were listening to the concerns of the quarrying industry.

Tim Faithfull, director of member services for the Construction Equipment Association, which represents manufacturers, said no other country was calling for such modifications.

He said design modifications have to be thoroughly tested to ensure longevity and conformity to all other regulations and suggested dealer-fitted retrofit systems were the way to overcome any problems in the short term.

[Contract Journal, 19 July 2006, p. 17]