Tower crane safety group launches at SED

The new best practice guide for the maintenance, inspection and through examination of tower cranes from the CPA’s Tower Cranes Interest Group (TCIG) received its official launch at SED today.

“We’re all fully aware of why this guide has been launched after several high-profile incidents in the last few years,” said CPA chief executive Colin Wood. “But I’d like to point out that the TCIG has been pro-active in this regard rather than reactive and a lot of its work has been done prior to some of the more recent incidents.”

The guide is designed to be used by all involved in the industry, from hire companies to main contractors using their services. The inconsistency of main contractors managing tower cranes on sites has been a source of particular concern to the HSE.

“We go on one site and find everything excellent and then we go on a site run by the same company less than four miles down the road in the same town and it can be abysmal,” said Ian Simpson, HSE specialist inspector.

Now, however, the guide should help resolve this inconsistency. “We will make it a cornerstone of how we assess the competence of those who provide cranes on our site,” said Ian Watson, technical safety manager at Bovis Lend Lease.

* Further seminars explaining the background to and purpose of the guide will be held on Wednesday and Thursday at 11am in the Gemini conference suite in the Rockingham building. There will also be afternoon seminars at 2pm targeted at contractors.