Construction professionals spearhead health & safety drive

Posted on Friday 1 January 2010

A recently held Pan-Industry Construction Industry Summit, hosted by The Association of Project Safety (APS) at the Royal Institution, London, agreed to continue working together to tackle injuries and incidences of long term physical and mental ill health, directly attributed to unsafe working practices and reduce the number of fatal accidents (around one per week and the number of deaths caused by ill health (100 deaths/week).

The Summit was supported by the Health and Safety Executive and its #HelpGBworkwell strategy. Organisations involved included the Building Research Environment and the Construction Industry Training Board.

Lesley McLeod, CEO of APS (pictured) said: “APS was overwhelmed by the commitment shown by delegates in tackling the issues raised by the CDM regulations, specifically around the role of the principal designer. This was an excellent forum, bringing complete consensus across the board in how we move forward to significantly reduce these unfortunate incidents from occurring.

"I would like to express our gratitude to our speakers; Nick Coakley, energy and environmental manager at York St John University; Nigel Hawkins from renowned London architects practice, Hawkins Brown; Nieves Rodriguez-Peral from Clark Construction Group and Philip Baker, BPS Access Solutions. Their contributions were invaluable.”