What an excellent example to us all of health and safety awareness the front cover of Building (14 July) is. So much so that I hardly know where to start. However, I will try:

  • Slips, trips and falls are regular contributors to death, injury and near misses on sites. Here we have a person with trousers that are so long she is walking on most of the leg. They will inevitably get caught up on something when walking around the site. When climbing ladders the cloth is likely to retain mud and cause a fall when the foot slips on the ladder rung. The unknown is: will injuries be sustained; what about death?
  • The leg length conceals the possibility that inappropriate footwear is being worn and, if it is, are the laces firmly tied and knotted?
  • The trousers appear to be well off the waist, further exacerbating the risk of slipping, tripping or falling (trousers falling down while going up a ladder was a good Laurel & Hardy gag but is not so funny on a construction site, I suspect).
  • High-visibility vest is at least one size too big and inappropriate for the summer months. Again, it will cause a slip, trip or fall.
Come on, Building, you can do better to set a front page example. If it was one of my sites the individual would not get beyond the gate no matter what sex they were.

Nick Brown, Nottinghamshire

Trouser travesty

No person (male or female) would be allowed on any of my sites wearing such dangerous trousers. Safety boots she may have on, but trips and slips? Dreadful. And irresponsible.

Paula McCann

Postscript

We ought to point out, in defence of the company that allowed us onto its site for the day, that our cover photograph was actually taken at a later date and in a different location to preserve the site’s anonymity.

The photograph is therefore not an accurate reflection of how our reporter was dressed on the day in question.

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