The possibility of a national register for tower cranes will top the agenda of the first meeting of the Strategic Forum’s Plant Safety Group, despite continued resistance from the Health and Safety Executive to the idea
Colin Wood, chief executive of the Construction Plant-hire Association (CPA) and chair of the Plant Safety Group, said he understood that some groups were still pushing for a national register.
He said: “If people want it, then we must find a way of satisfying the requirement for a register, as long as the information on it is relevant.”
Building reported in December that the HSE had resisted calls by the Department for Work and Pensions to create a register, on the grounds that it would be “too unwieldy and bureaucratic”.
A senior source at the time said the HSE had expressed concerns over “what the benefits of such a register would be”.
The Strategic Forum’s tower crane working group, formed after a spate of fatal accidents involving tower cranes in the past few years, was wound up in December.
Wood also revealed that the safety of the semi-automatic “hitches” which hold the digging buckets on the arms of JCBs would also be discussed, following the death of a 58-year-old man on a Skanska/GrantRail project in early December.
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