New guidance has been created to reduce the risk of trapping and crushing hazards when using mobile elevating work platforms (MEWPs).  The free, updated safety guidance created by the Construction Industry Plant Safety Group (CIPSG) is directed towards operators, supervisors and rescuers of MEWPs.

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament, includes a new duty on employers to take “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees.  We don’t know what these “reasonable steps” might be yet, but the Government has already said it probably won’t make a list of things that employers have to do. Instead, it will be up to each workplace to prove it is keeping its staff safe.

A farmer has been fined £8k after a teenage worker suffered serious head injuries when a six-tonne dumper he was driving overturned.  The 19-year-old and his friend, who was just 16, had been paid to move material as part of improvement works at Upper Kingswell Farm in the village of Longdown in Exeter.

A company has been fined after an employee fractured his back and ribs following a fall from a house in Frodsham, Cheshire.  The man was working for Renka Limited after the company had been hired to supply and install windows, doors and frames at the property on Village Road.

Two companies have been fined more than £380k after a worker fell through the roof of a retail unit in Milton Keynes.  The roofer, who was 32 at the time, fell more than 20 feet through a roof light on to a suspended ceiling at Unit 103, Watling Street, on 19 July 2019. The man landed on the floor below and broke his ankle.

A company has been fined £120,000 after a dad died following a fall from the roof of a building site.  Father-of-one Dennis Vincent, 36, and another worker were using ropes to install a lightning protection system to the front of a Warrington office block being converted into flats.

A company has been fined £20,000 for a catalogue of health and safety failings at a building site in Alderley Edge.  Work was taking place to convert an old bank into offices on London Road in the Cheshire village.

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.  The company pleaded guilty to breaching reg 27(1) of the Construction (Design and Management) (CDM) Regulations 2015 after a joiner was fatally crushed by a 20-tonne excavator on 5 September 2017. 

The popularity of hot tubs and spa-pools has increased significantly over recent years. If you rent out a property, whether through an agent, “Air BnB” or directly then you are classed as running a commercial or business activity.  If the letting has a hot tub or spa, then you have a legal duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to ensure that you have assessed the risks posed by chemical and biological hazards, including (Legionella, Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria and Cryptosporidium). You then must introduce suitable control measures.

HSE has guidance on working safely under motor vehicles being repaired and has also issued a safety alert for air suspension systems on vehicles.   A Dorset man who found his friend and neighbour crushed to death under a car has urged mechanics and car enthusiasts not to cut corners.