More Elfinsafety Nonsense

Via Mark Wadsworth, this little bit of nonsense:

A town has been banned from putting up 60 Christmas trees – because it is too dangerous.

Health and safety rules forbid the council from using stepladders to put the decorations above shops and businesses in Llandovery, Carmarthenshire.

‘We have been advised that over a certain height we need scaffolding or a cherry picker,’ said deputy mayor Helene Lovell.

I despair, really I do – and not for the reason most people will despair. I am sick to the back teeth of this stuff. The working at height regulations do not forbid stepladders. What they do – if those charged with applying them were to bother reading them and use a bit of common sense – is what every piece of health and safety legislation does; it charges the employer with assessing the risk and managing it appropriately.

Working at Height Regulations 2005 (as amended) regualtions 6:

Avoidance of risks from work at height
     6.  – (1) In identifying the measures required by this regulation, every employer shall take account of a risk assessment under regulation 3 of the Management Regulations.

Paragraph 24 of the guidance notes relating to regulation 6 put it in plain English:

When selecting equipment for work at height you must:

• use the most suitable equipment;
• give collective protection measures (eg guard rails) priority over personal protection measures (eg safety harnesses);
• take account of:
• the working conditions; and
• risks to the safety of all those at the place where the work equipment is to be used.

If, therefore, ladders have been banned, it is not the regulations that have banned them, it is the employer because the employer has decided that they are not suitable.

How do window cleaners manage to do their jobs without scaffolding and cherry pickers? It is because the job is of a brief duration, the ladder is fit for purpose – and, if they have any sense – secured.

It may well be that the height in question demands a mobile scaffolding tower or cherry picker – and I would have thought that an ideal tool for fitting Christmas lights above a street, for example. If the council choose not to do this, then it is the council, not the regulations that are responsible. Remember, the regulations merely require a risk assessment and effective management and the right tool for the job – i.e. common sense. It is up to the employer to interpret that according to the task at hand.

Of course, if the journalists writing this piece had any integrity whatsoever, they would have done the tiny bit of research necessary to realise that this is a non-story. They could, for example have Googled “working at height regulations (2005)” it isn’t difficult – although clearly beyond the skills of the Metro’s staff writers.

However shopkeepers plan to keep the tradition alive by putting up their own trees.

That’s fine, but the same principles apply to them as employers; assess the risk and manage it accordingly – and use the right tool for the job.

‘It’s stupid it has been banned,’ said business-woman Helen Greenslade.

Then blame your councils, not health and safety legislation. I would be the first to argue that we probably have too much legislation on the statute book, but these stories are all too often about people being too stupid, lazy or obtuse to apply them properly and to use a bit of common sense.

Health and safety rules do not ban Christmas lights; stupid people do.