CIOB said the information provided by HSE suggests the register’s only purpose is as a data collection tool, which will be of little use to the industry or tower crane safety. It said valuable time and resources could be wasted in developing this set of stand-alone regulations, and instead called for a “more direct method” such as site visits and active monitoring of tower cranes in use.

As the proposed regulations stand, CIOB said greater clarity of definitions is needed. In particular it said it had reservations over the definition of the term ‘owner’, which it said could be misinterpreted due to the nature of ownership and use of tower cranes. Instead, it said, the definitions should be aligned to those provided in the LOLER regulations.

CIOB also said the regulations should be incorporated within existing regulatory framework, most notably the CDM regulations, which it said “would be both more time and cost effective for the industry and HSE, whilst still gathering all required information”.

“Although stand-alone regulations may provide more clarity there are several issues with this method, including the cost of implementing the register, resources to manage the process and the difficulty several companies would have in paying the fee due to their accounts process.”

Adam Hollis, of the CIOB’s Health and Safety Committee, said: “We applaud the HSE for tackling this serious issue, but we feel there are alternative ways to gather the information without developing a new set of stand-alone regulations.”