With its busiest year on the construction side yet and an equally intense period coming up, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has reiterated it commitment to health and safety as a priority theme in its annual report for 2009-2010.

The National Access & Scaffolding Confederation has reiterated its claim that only by using regulated scaffolding firms can businesses be certain of receiving a higher and safer standard of scaffolding practice than that carried out by non-regulated operators.

The number of people killed at work in Britain fell to a record low of 151 in 2009/2010 – down from 178 the previous year, and 31 per cent lower than the average figure for the last five years.

Construction safety – is it working? Lincsafe’s John Lacey posed this question at the Sperian round-table session at Safety & Health Expo today, adding that if the answer is ‘no’, then don’t shoot the messenger!

Almost a quarter of construction sites visited by the HSE during a month-long inspection blitz failed safety checks.

A bricklayer has been left paralysed from the chest down after being crushed by a steel beam at a construction site in Yorkshire.

Two construction companies have been fined a total of £125,000 after a worker fell 21 metres during building work at a hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

A building firm failed to warn its employees that asbestos was present during renovations at a school in Warwickshire.

A crane hire firm failed to take a tower crane out of service despite a fault being identified moments before it was used to lift a five-tonne load during development work at a college in Hertfordshire.

Two construction companies have appeared in court after a 44-tonne piling machine overturned on to a busy main road in Hull.

When some of the UK’s biggest construction firms were revealed last year as subscribers to a covert database containing sensitive personal information on thousands of building workers the outcry was immense, and led to the introduction of new laws banning blacklisting. But they don’t go far enough to ensure the practice is wiped out once and for all, argues Dave Smith, who was one of the safety reps on the list.

According to Paul Fenwick, there are two key health and safety challenges facing designers: how to get risk management information effectively to those who require it; and what and how much risk information to provide.

The UK construction sector has reduced its injury rate significantly, but can it be sustained? Following on from his article in the March issue of SHP, Andrew Townsend argues that further improvement is unlikely unless we find out what leads to a fall in injury rates.

John Mcilhagga describes how his company worked together with clients, suppliers and equipment manufacturers to address a perennial problem in the construction and utilities industries – instability of mini-excavators.

Coordinating and managing a large construction programme on a ‘live’ university site without jeopardising the experience of students is a huge test, especially in terms of health and safety. Paul Fenwick explains how the challenges are being surmounted.

A number of members from the Olympic Park workforce have been recognised for their efforts to make the project one of the safest and greenest in the UK.

Construction site managers from all over the country were celebrating earlier this month after being presented with a health and safety award from the Building Safety Group Ltd.

Supermarket chain ASDA has signed up to the Constructing Better Health (CBH) client charter to help promote a strong occupational health culture in its retail development programme.

Constructing Better Health (CBH) has launched its new website, providing occupational-health advice and information for the construction industry.

David Nimmo, operations director of Stewart Milne Timber Systems (SMTS) has scooped the top gong at the National House-Building Council’s Health and Safety Awards.

Engineering firms Atkins, Arup, Halcrow and Mott MacDonald have come together to launch a health and safety assessment for the international construction community.

An underground services course accredited by IOSH has been released by RPA Safety Services Ltd.

Kestrel hand-held weather meters are distributed in the UK by Richard Paul Russell.

India’s largest engineering and construction conglomerate, Larsen Toubro Ltd, has ordered trapped-key interlocking safety systems from industrial valve and safety supplier Netherlocks
B.V. to safeguard ‘pigging’ (pipeline cleaning operations for two major projects.

Vital ID, the specialist leisure and industrial ID company, is launching its new Hard Hat Safety ID product in the UK construction industry.