You’ve got until the end of July to have your say on the Health and Safety Commission’s plans to change the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations.

Issued on 31 March, the plans purport to cut paperwork and beef up clients’ duties, but they’ve already drawn fire from the Association for Project Safety (formerly the Association of Planning Supervisors) and a group of safety-minded designers, the Design Initiative on Health and Safety.

Planning supervisors would be replaced by project co-ordinators, appointed by the client before work starts, but the APS feels that the new role is even weaker than planning supervisors turned out to be. And the Design Initiative is worried that the proposals do not make it clear who is responsible for unsafe design.

A lively email debate is currently under way on the HSE website dedicated to the consultation. You can view it by visiting http://consultations.hse.gov.uk/consult.ti/conregs/consultationHome

Source

Construction Manager

Postscript

Hard copies of the full text of the draft are also available from HSE Books, PO Box 1999, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 2WA. Tel: 01787 881165 Fax: 01787 313995.