The leader of a London council who refused to wear a hard hat while visiting a redevelopment site in his borough defended his decision, saying “people should have a choice whether to wear them or not”.

Stephen Carr, who heads up Bromley Council in south-east London, was visiting the Pavilion leisure centre last weeek, which is being redeveloped in a £5 million project by Higgins Construction. According to reports in local papers, Mr Carr said he informed the site manager he wouldn’t be wearing a hat and that the manager could refuse him entry if he had concerns. The visit went ahead.

Mr Carr denied it was “a vanity thing”, saying he “just doesn’t do hats”. He continued: “I think people should have a choice whether they should wear them or not, and I was making my choice.”

SHP contacted Bromley Council, pointing out that, last year, almost 11,000 people were injured at work because they were hit by a moving, flying or falling object from a building or structure, and that the number of fatalities in the construction industry has increased this year, but we were told nobody was available to comment.

Higgins Construction finally responded to our request for a comment (NOTE: this was received and incorporated into this story after the first 83 readers comments below – up to and including Lyndon36 – were posted). The company said: "The safety of our supply chain and others who may be affected by our undertakings is of paramount importance. This unfortunate situation was caused by this particular individual applying peer pressure to our site manager and insisting that he would not wear a hard hat.

“Our site manager at the time decided not to upset the client, and he therefore carried out correct company procedure by carrying out a full risk assessment. The councillor and the rest of the clientèle team were escorted by the site manager at all times and walked a safe zone where there were no overhead /underfoot hazards, and at no time did they enter any work areas.

“It is extremely disappointing that an individual with such a standing in the community acted in this manner, as he should be leading by example. This incident has been dealt with internally and our minimum PPE requirement has been reiterated to the appropriate personnel within the business.”

SHP would be very interested in hearing readers’ thoughts on this story – was Mr Carr right to “exercise his choice”? Should the site manager have refused him entry? What sort of message does this action give to workers about wearing PPE, and to the public in general about health and safety?

Please leave your comment below – the best one will receive an SHP thermo-mug (you must enter a valid email address, so that we can contact you).

Also, click here to see south-east London paper the News Shopper’s mock-ups of Mr Carr in a variety of fetching head-gear!