Health and safety at the Olympics

The Beijing Olympics start today, and are likely to focus extra attention on how London’s preparations for 2012 are going. For our special feature on training, Tina Weadick spent the day with the Olympic Delivery Authority’s health and safety advisor to find out about two initiatives to prepare adults and children from communities local to the planned construction sites for the Games.

Most people are aware by now that vast swathes of east and south-east London are undergoing huge changes as part of both the 2012 Olympics preparation and the wider Thames Gateway regeneration project. The area will become Europe’s largest construction site when building gets properly under way but, at the moment, it would be more accurate to describe it as Europe’s largest demolition and clearance site, as the ground is being prepared for the future, fantastical, structures to come.

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) is the public body responsible for developing and building the venues and infrastructure for the Games. As well as the obvious aim of ensuring that everything is completed on time for a Games that will make London and Britain proud, the Authority is adamant that exemplary health and safety procedures are at the heart of its activities, and that it leaves a legacy that ensures benefits continue to be reaped long after the last gold medals have been presented in 2012.

The obvious legacy of the Games will be the wonderful venues and sports facilities left behind. Less obvious, but just as important, are the training and skills being provided by the ODA (and others) for, in particular, the communities living in and around the five London boroughs affected by the project – Hackney, Newham, Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets and Greenwich.

Towards the end of last year the Government announced that the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) would be spending an additional £5 million across London to expand vocational training in four key areas related to the Games, one of which is construction. The aim is to meet rising skills demand by providing training for people on incapacity and health benefit to enable them to gain employment in the sector.

But it’s not just those of working age who are being targeted. Children in the host boroughs, too, are being educated about the dangers of playing on building sites, in anticipation of the huge temptation the new sites are going to present once the buildings get underway. To find out more about these two initiatives, I spent a day with the ODA’s health and safety advisor, Ros Seal, and saw at first hand the practical efforts being made to ensure a great Games and a lasting legacy.

Dig your own hole

Our first port of call was to ‘Digger School’ just outside Stratford. Ok, so that’s not its real name but it’s an apt description of the National Skills Academy for Construction’s centre for delivering National Construction College (NCC) driver training on all types of site plant – excavators, dump-trucks, forklift, and telescopic handlers, among others.

Senior inspector with the NCC Chris Blake explained that the organisation works with the London Development Authority to put programmes together based on the needs of the students. Every week, a different course takes place – for example, the five-day telescopic handler course, the two-week 360-degree excavator course, or the four-day slinger-signaller course.

Explained Chris: “Day one on all the courses is classroom-based. Module 1 is ‘introduction to the industry’; module 2 is ‘site safety awareness’. This covers the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, PUWER, welfare facilities, PPE, etc. It’s seven hours of tutoring, minimum. It is full foundation training, so people with no knowledge at all can come here and do this course.”

Since the centre opened in November last year, 240 people have been through its courses, and, of those, 130 are currently in employment. The five host boroughs have provided 99 per cent of these students, including Robert, from Leyton, who had just passed the telehandler course on the morning of our visit. He said: “I have been driving forklift trucks for 11 years and I wanted to try something different. I hope to get a job on one of the Olympics sites after this.”

Former student Shelley also successfully completed the telehandler course and was the first woman to do so at this centre. She now works in the centre’s office, providing administration support. She explained: “There are open courses designed just for women, including basic plumbing, electrics, and basic construction. We’ve had about a dozen through here, and eight of them are currently in employment. I would recommend [plant operation] as a job for women – without a shadow of a doubt!”

Given such a glowing report, Ros and I had to give it a go – even if it was only to make our male friends and colleagues who had played with dumper-trucks as boys jealous. Under the expert eye of Chris Blake, we tried our hands at operating a wheel-loading shovel, and a 360-degree excavator. Suffice to say it was rather more difficult than pootling along in my little hatchback – the dexterity, lightness of touch on the controls, concentration, and accurate eye required are considerable, and our laborious efforts at digging a hole and dumping the debris were completely overshadowed by Chris’s swift and skilful clean-up after us.

While it is unlikely that we will be snapped up as plant drivers anytime soon, many others who have been, or are about to, go through this training will find their skills in demand as the real construction starts, providing a tangible benefit for the local community.

The kids are alright

The ODA also deserves credit for looking after the health and safety of the capital’s younger generation, with its ‘Stay safe, stay out’ campaign aimed at schoolchildren in the host boroughs. To engage the children and their teachers the programme uses drama to communicate the importance of staying safe when living and playing near to construction sites, which can seem like exciting adventure parks to inquisitive youngsters.

Theatre company Arc was brought on board to develop a 15-minute play featuring schoolkids ‘Daniel’ and ‘Anya’, who portray what can happen when children ignore warnings and gain access to building sites to use them as a playground. When Daniel falls and injures himself the audience is asked to come up with ideas on ‘what happens next?’ and to act out their own ideas of what other hazards they might encounter on a busy site.

Ros and I, together with ODA chair John Arnitt, attended a performance by actors Teddy and Grace (pictured above) to Year 5 pupils (aged 9-10 years) at Bygrove Primary School in Tower Hamlets. Watching the children’s reactions to the performance, and listening to their observations and ideas afterwards, was a revelation – and, it has to be said, highly amusing! They gasped when Anya demonstrated how “wicked” safety boots are by making Daniel wear one she found on the site and then dropping a brick on his foot. They giggled nervously when she put on a safety helmet and made Daniel whack her on the head with a piece of wood.

In an interactive session after the play, the actors asked the children questions on health and safety (“What is a building site?” Young lad: “It’s a site where you do building.” Can’t argue with that!) Asked what a safety inspector does, the answers ranged from: “He makes sure no people who aren’t supposed to be there, are not there” to: “He makes sure no one breaks their toe, or their neck.”

When the children were then asked to act out the part of a safety inspector whose job is to visit a school like theirs and explain to the pupils about the dangers of building sites, I expected a display of hands on hips and gratuitous finger-wagging, but I was pleasantly surprised by the maturity of some of the performances – even if many of the children seemed preoccupied by the danger of getting your head stuck in cement. They did, however, understand that there are other, more likely hazards, such as falling into holes, being struck by site vehicles, being cut by something sharp, and getting hit on the head by falling objects.

To round up the session, Grace and Teddy asked the children if Daniel deserved what happened to him. The response was divided, with some saying it was his own fault, and others blaming Anya for egging him on to trespass on the site with her in the first place. Warned Grace: “Remember – it’s important to keep safety in your mind and know when to walk away.” Added Teddy: “It’s more ‘chicken’ to accept a dare than to do what you feel is right.” Finally, when asked if it’s possible to have fun and be safe, the response from the children was a heartening “yes!”

John Arnitt is totally supportive of the initiative and has always had a belief in the power of theatre in schools. He said: “If children can act out concepts, they stick with them for far longer. Many people feel the Olympics are being ‘done’ to them, and this project gives us a real opportunity to engage with the local community, especially the children, and excite them about the opportunities that come with hosting an Olympic Games.”

Artistic director of Arc, Carol Pluckrose, said the medium of drama helps turn what can be a “dry” subject – health and safety – into something engaging and fun. The reason this particular initiative is working so well, she concluded, is because the parties involved are “fully committed to the project, and working well together”.

Conclusion

When SHP interviewed the ODA’s head of health and safety, Lawrence Waterman, two years ago, he said: “All of the evidence in construction is that if you spend enough time properly thinking through projects with health and safety in mind, then you can end up with a well-run project that goes smoothly.” The Authority is certainly working along these lines with these training initiatives, planning and preparing for the coming construction work.

Ros Seal added to her boss’s words by pointing out: “As a safety team, if we can leave behind a better training tool, that’s wonderful. It’s all about people being healthy, staying safe, making a positive contribution, enjoying their life, and achieving economic well-being.”

A gold-medal prospect, if ever there was one.