There are around 1,500 tower cranes in the UK, of which about 1,000 are probably on site right now, says Philip White, head of the UK’s Health & Safety Executive (HSE) construction division.
It’ll cost just GBP20 to register a crane in the new HSE tower crane register, which will become effective April 2010.
I’ll do the maths for you: for just GBP20,000, the UK industry could take a huge step towards avoiding a repeat of “Canada Square, Worthing, Croydon and Battersea,” to name some of the high profile examples White refers to. It’s a small price to pay if in return for safety.
Consultation begun in July through October and the scheme was agreed at HSE’s board meeting late last month (November); the proposals now go to ministers for their agreement.
UCATT, the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, has called for a comprehensive crane register, in response.
Importantly, the HSE register “will be limited to assisted erection cranes on construction sites,” which means tower cranes on, say, docksides and steel yards will not feature; nor will self erectors in any environment. “The view was mixed but this outcome which strikes a sensible balance was my preference,” says White.
The UK’s crane regulations, the 1998 Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER), require that tower cranes are thoroughly examined by a competent person when they are erected, and then at least every six or 12 months (depending on whether they are used for personnel lifts). The new tower crane registration scheme will build on this requirement.
The HSE wants to be notified of the address where the crane is erected, the name and address of the crane’s owners, the details needed to identify the crane, the date of its TE, the details of the employer for whom the TE was performed and whether any defects posing a risk of serious injury were identified.
“We had 100 responses during the consultation phase, which demonstrated strong interest for what we were trying to do,” says White.
In its very nature, the register is proactive, not reactive. The HSE has been criticised down the years for its reactionary approach to accidents and safety. The HSE issues safety alerts, like the one circulated in 2006 reminding those working on projects where tower cranes are in use of the importance of safe erection, operation, maintenance and dismantling.
“I don’t think its right to level that [reactionary] criticism at the HSE exclusively. The spotlight was on the whole industry after the high profile accidents the UK has seen over the past 10 years. It’s not true that the HSE has ignored tower crane safety”.
White doesn’t seem to be as bound by red tape as other folk at the HSE. He reluctantly refers to his previous work in the Department for Work and Pensions as being exposed to the “political realities” of health and safety. He qualified that by adding that tower cranes were an “issue that exercised the minds” of politicians. He sees his current job more as an operational role.
Shortly before speaking to me, he’d given acknowledgment to a major contractor that its DVD about safe tower crane climbing was a “good idea”. He talks candidly about safety, yet remains conscious of the role he needs to play to be effective. It’s about engaging effectively with industry “and filling gaps in our knowledge”.
“Sometimes it just takes a long time to report on an accident,” he says, when questioned about the delay between a crane coming down and lessons actually being learnt from the mistakes that were made. “We try to get information out to industry as quickly as possible but, remember, sometimes there are legal proceedings as a result of our investigations and that naturally delays the process.”
He is supportive of the industry’s Safe Crane Campaign, an initiative instigated and administered by the UK construction industry to ensure that tower cranes on UK construction sites are safely erected, maintained, operated and dismantled. “The UK has one of the best safety records worldwide, but we can learn something from all geographies. I recently met with a high level delegation from Singapore and another from Hong Kong. The Health and Safety Laboratory is carrying out research to improve our understanding of crane incidents at an international level.
“There is a downward trend in accidents in the UK. The important statistic to consider is the accident rate per 100,000 people working in the industry.”
White sums up this proactive approach as a mission “to prove the competence of people. NVQs, for example, are a sign of progress. It’s about finding metrics for competency.“
Competency is a recurring theme for the HSE. Indeed, the safety alert we spoke about in 2006 said: “Tower cranes are erected and dismantled by competent people…” and that, “only competent people are allowed to operate the crane.”
Further steps forward will be taken, White claims, in that information on the investigation into the recent crane collapse in Liverpool, in which a crane fell backwards onto a four-storey apartment building on Tabley Street in the middle of the day, will be released shortly.
“We’re also doing work into wind loading devices on cranes,” he says. “It’s a case of plugging away.”
