Safety’s no nuisance - it can be a life saver

Every day we see local builders going about their daily jobs – bricklaying, carpentry, roofing, plastering etc. And almost every one will dismiss ‘elf and safety as a nuisance or a waste of time, or something similar. The things I hear most from builders is “I’ve been doing this for years, I know what I’m doing, and the best one - it’s only common sense…”

An accident waiting to happen SUS-140209-123448001

Yet the accident figures prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these local builders are at the greatest risk of injury or death of any in the already dangerous construction sector. To these builders, factoring in a safer system of working such as edge protection around a roof or making sure that materials cannot fall from a scaffold onto anyone below is just an extra ‘unnecessary’ expense.

A bricklayer recently told me that he “… could lose a job for the sake of being £5 more expensive than the next guy”. I sympathise with this – I used to be on the tools. But how much would he lose if he broke his leg falling from his ladder or dropped a brick onto his customers’ head as she went out shopping…

Burying his head in the sand and saying – ‘it won’t happen to me’ is not the way to go.