Health and Safety Executive to pressure other major projects such as Crossrail and Hinkley Point to reduce accidents

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The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) will apply more pressure on clients leading major projects such as Crossrail, as well as Hinkley Point and other nuclear schemes, to reduce accident frequency rates following the success of the Olympic construction health and safety performance.

The HSE’s chief inspector of construction, Philip White, said he would challenge leaders of major projects to “hit the new bar” set by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) on London 2012.

The project, which at its peak involved a 12,500-strong workforce on the Olympic park and Olympic village, was completed without an accident-related fatality. It involved around 62 million hours of work with an Accident Frequency Rate of 0.17 per 100,000 hours - half the industry average.

White said the performance showed that there was no excuse for large clients and contractors not to learn lessons from the Olympic park project and have similar levels of success.

“It has shown how we can make an inherently dangerous industry safe,” he added.