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March/April 2023 issue

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News

Government bans combustible cladding and permits LAs to strip materials from private towers

Open-access content Friday 30th November 2018
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

Government bans combustible cladding and permits LAs to strip materials from private towers

Housing secretary James Brokenshire made the announcement in Parliament yesterday (29 November), when the regulations were laid to give legal effect to the ban made public earlier this year.

The use of combustible materials is now prohibited on the external walls of tower blocks taller than 18 m, as well as new hospitals, residential care homes, dormitories in boarding schools and student accommodation over 18 m.

Dame Judith Hackitt's review of the UK's building and fire regulations, commissioned by the government after the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, did not recommend any specific product bans.

Hackitt said: "If we only fix the cladding issue, we could only guarantee there would not be another fire caused by cladding. Unless we fix the system, we have no way of guaranteeing we couldn't have another catastrophic high-rise fire caused by something else."

However, following a consultation on the matter, the government decided to take forward a ban on combustible materials in the inner leaf, insultation and cladding used in external wall systems of tower blocks and other buildings.

Brokenshire also said yesterday he was acting to speed up the replacement of unsafe aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding on existing buildings, like that used on the Grenfell Tower.

He pledged to give local authorities "full backing, including financial support if necessary" to removal ACM cladding from private buildings. They will be able to recover the costs from landlords, ensuring that buildings will be made permanently safe without delay.

"I am laying an addendum to the housing health and safety rating system operating guidance. This addendum provides specific guidance on the assessment of high-rise residential buildings with unsafe cladding. This will help local authorities to make robust hazard assessments and boost their ability to take decisive enforcement action," Brokenshire said.

"Alongside this the joint inspection team, hosted by the Local Government Association, will provide support to local authorities in their assessments and give them confidence to take enforcement action.

"I am also writing to local authorities with buildings where the owner refuses to remediate unsafe ACM cladding, to offer them our full support to take enforcement action. This will include financial support where this is necessary for the local authorities to carry out emergency remedial work.

"Where financial support is provided, local authorities will recover the costs from the building owner.

"I am determined that building owners will not evade their responsibilities and that local authorities will have all the support they need to ensure that all high-rise buildings with unsafe ACM cladding are made permanently safe for the people who live in them."

A total of 159 social-sector residential tower blocks have been identified as using ACM cladding, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Cladding on 76% of these buildings has either been replaced (22 buildings) or is in the process of being removed (99). Corrective action plans are in place for the remaining 38 buildings.

There are also 295 private-sector structures that are cladded in ACM, including 205 residential blocks. Statistics show that replacement work has finished on just ten of these buildings and remediation work is underway on a further 26.

The government is fully funding the replacement of unsafe ACM cladding on social sector buildings above 18 m.

In October IOSH Magazine reported that £248m had been allocated to 12 local authorities and 31 housing associations to fund the replacement of ACM on 135 buildings.

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 ‘Deceitful’ builder first to be fined under NZ’s new asbestos regulations

Wednesday 14th November 2018
Richard John Knight was prosecuted under ss 206(1)(a), (b) and 3(a) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, and the Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016 at Christchurch District Court and fined NZ$3,000 (£1,562).New Zealand OSH regulator WorkSafe found that, as well as working without a Class A removal licence – which ensures a competent person is engaged to carry out the work –  Knight had also failed to obtain the required certification for the work he completed.
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 Government to toughen fire regulation in light of Hackitt review recommendations

Thursday 20th December 2018
Housing minister James Brokenshire confirmed on 18 December that the government will implement all the recommendations made by Hackitt in her Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, published in May 2018.The new regime will mandate named dutyholders for fire safety compliance at the design, construction and occupation stages of residential buildings of 10 storeys or more.
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 Fraudster jailed for selling fake construction skills cards

Friday 9th November 2018
Warwickshire City Council Trading Standards brought the prosecution against Andrew Weeks, 53, after he was found producing the fake cards at his printing company Nuneaton Print and selling them online for up to £30.99 each.  Forged documents included cards for the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS), the Construction Plant Competence Scheme (CPCS) and the Electrotechnical Certification Scheme (ECS).
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 Judges throw out property developer’s gross negligence manslaughter appeal

Thursday 8th November 2018
Lawyers for Andrew William Winterton, the construction site manager and director of Conquest Homes, told the Court of Appeal that the case against him was so weak it should never have gone to trial.But Lady Justice Macur and two other judges sitting at the Court of Appeal in London dismissed his challenge on 6 November.
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 Contractor dry swept asbestos dust in football pitch-sized floor

Wednesday 7th November 2018
Y Construction was refurbishing parts of Rose Lane Business Centre in Norwich, including a former kitchen and canteen, when the exposure took place. The firm had started work in late April 2015 and various work continued into until early November 2015. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that it was during the latter months that workers were significantly exposed.The workers were non-English speakers with limited understanding of the language, knew little about the asbestos on the site and had received no asbestos awareness training.
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 Singapore High Court hands down first jail sentence under 2011 safety law change

Monday 5th November 2018
The foreman was sentenced to 25 weeks in jail on 2 November after a High Court judge said that the courts’ existing practice of handing out only fines to those who committed safety breaches should be reviewed.
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  Morrisons’ £3.5m fine is ‘a warning to all employers’, says council

Friday 24th March 2023
Morrisons supermarket has been fined £3.5 million for failing to ensure the health and safety of an epileptic employee who died after falling from a shop stairway.
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 IOSH launches new five-year strategy

Tuesday 21st March 2023
IOSH launches its new five-year strategy this spring. It will build and act on the reshaped purpose and ambition gained during WORK 2022, which ran from 2017 to 2022.
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 Risk & Compliance software provider collaborates with HSE and Costain to improve risk management on worksites

Friday 17th March 2023
A Belfast-based Risk & Compliance software provider has been collaborating with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and construction giant Costain as part of an ongoing project to unlock artificial intelligence’s (AI) potential in improving the management of risks on worksites.
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Latest from Construction

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 Risk & Compliance software provider collaborates with HSE and Costain to improve risk management on worksites

Friday 17th March 2023
A Belfast-based Risk & Compliance software provider has been collaborating with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and construction giant Costain as part of an ongoing project to unlock artificial intelligence’s (AI) potential in improving the management of risks on worksites.
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 Musculoskeletal disorders in construction

Thursday 2nd March 2023
Ian Whittles, an HSE construction inspector, reveals the cultural challenges in the sector, the drive behind the Work Right campaign and the musculoskeletal benefits it hopes to achieve.
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 Principal contractor handed £146k fine for fatal excavator crush goes into liquidation

Tuesday 14th February 2023
Birch Brothers (Kidderminster) Ltd was the principal contractor on a construction project in Derbyshire that was building a concrete overflow weir structure on the site. The Midlands firm had brought in steel fixers and joiners to undertake the work.
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 A reasonable balance to strike

Friday 24th March 2023
Safety interventions should be practicable and cost-effective, but too much of an imbalance towards safety does not make economic sense for employers, argues Geoff Vaughan, who suggests ‘gross disproportion’ provides a practical limit.
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 Spring budget and occupational health

Friday 17th March 2023
Richard Jones CFIOSH, comments on the occupational health aspects of the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's first budget statement.
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 Health and safety regulations at risk under draft law

Monday 13th March 2023
A proposed new law aims to revoke EU-derived legislation, including life-saving protections, by December 2023, unless specifically kept or replaced – Richard Jones CFIOSH explains how OSH practitioners can get involved.
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 Terminal cancer cases in Grenfell firefighters

Friday 20th January 2023
National media reports have revealed that up to a dozen Grenfell firefighters have been diagnosed with terminal cancer
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 Appeal success for food firm over ‘excessive’ fine

Tuesday 1st November 2022
Court of Appeal reduces Dub Catering’s £120,000 penalty for firm’s breaches of fire safety law.
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 HSE publishes revised construction fire safety guidance

Thursday 1st September 2022
The GB Health and Safety Executive has recently published a revised version of its fire safety in construction (HSG168) document. 
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