IOSH has urged caution after a parliamentary committee recommended that the government set a 40-year deadline to remove asbestos from all public and commercial buildings.  The Work and Pensions Committee’s report, The Health and Safety Executive’s Approach to Asbestos Management, published on 21 April, calls on the government to commit to a strategy to remove all asbestos from public and commercial buildings by 2062 and to ramp up funding to boost enforcement activity.

Stonegate Pub Company has pleaded not guilty to four health and safety charges brought by Durham County Council following the death of Olivia Burt on 7 February 2018.  Burt, a 20-year-old first-year university student studying natural sciences, was killed after a metal barrier collapsed while she and her friends queued outside Missoula Nightclub in Durham city centre. Missoula is owned by Stonegate Pub Company, the largest pub owning company in the UK.

Workplace wellbeing has long been a priority for many HR professionals, managers and businesses, however, it’s only in more recent times that the emphasis has extended beyond physical health and safety to the mental and emotional wellness of employees.  The most recent guidelines published by The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on 2nd March 2022 revealed that mindfulness, meditation and yoga were most effective overall in reducing job stress and mental health symptoms and having a positive effect on employee mental wellbeing, with further evidence proving that these interventions were effective when delivered either in a group or online.

A Manchester construction company was fined after much of a three-bedroom domestic property in Stretford collapsed during a loft conversion and ground floor extension work.  Manchester Magistrates’ Court heard that on 4 May 2020, Mughal Construction Limited had been carrying out a loft conversion when it collapsed, causing workers to flee from the site. The building had insufficient temporary supports and workers did not have sufficient skills, knowledge and experience, to carry out the work safely.

MPs have called for a 40-year deadline for all asbestos to be removed from public and commercial buildings.   The Work and Pensions Select Committee said asbestos remained the biggest cause of work-related deaths in the UK.  More than 5,000 such fatalities were recorded in 2019.

An agreement between the Government and 35 major developers will see £5 billion committed from industry towards addressing the building safety scandal, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has announced.   £2 billion of this has been committed directly from the 35 developers to fix their own buildings, while the remaining £3 billion will come from an extension to the Building Safety Levy, which the department says will “force industry to pay and protect innocent leaseholders”.

A family-run transport and haulage company founded in Newcastle upon Tyne in the 1930s has been fined £200,000 after a longstanding employee died from injuries sustained in a fatal fall. We spoke to the investigating inspector to find out what went wrong.  Newcastle Magistrates’ Court was told that JR Adams (Newcastle) Limited employee Keith Robson was unloading steel beams from the rear of a transport shipping container on 27 June 2018 when he suddenly fell around 1.5 m. He later died in hospital from his injuries.

More than one in eight privately rented homes in England pose a serious threat to people’s health and safety, costing the NHS about £340m a year, according to a report from a committee of MPs.  It also uncovered evidence of unlawful discrimination, with an estimated one in four landlords unwilling to let to non-British passport holders.

A principal contractor and subcontractor have been fined after an employee’s retina was damaged by an explosion caused by a cable strike during construction works at a substation.  Manchester Magistrates Court heard how VolkerInfra Ltd, a high voltage cabling expert contractor, had been subcontracted by principal contractor Siemens Energy Ltd to carry out cabling works as part of a wider construction project at Whitegate Substation in Chadderton, Manchester. On the 17th September 2019, an excavator driver, working on behalf of VolkerInfra Ltd, was excavating phases for laying a 275kV cable and struck an existing live cable close by with the excavator. The contact resulted in multiple explosions which caused blistering to the driver’s retina.

Robert McBride Ltd was sentenced today for safety breaches after a 31-year-old worker suffered 13 per cent superficial burns to his right arm and hand following the ignition of flammable vapours at the company’s site in Hull.  Beverley Magistrates’ Court heard that on 21 August 2017, a batch of hairspray was being mixed in a 10,000 litre stainless steel mixing vessel. Flammable vapours were created within the mixing vessel as a result of heating.