Health and Safety

Barratt Developments has spent or allocated £180m on making legacy buildings safe in its latest accounts – and warned that there may be more to come. This was in addition to the £434.6m provision it made in its 2022 accounts for such works. In a trading update released ahead of…

A 57-year-old Balfour Beatty worker has died following a “serious incident” on a construction site at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) campus in Aldermaston, near Reading. The individual was airlifted to hospital on Thursday evening (6 July) following the accident, which is believed to have happened during piling, but later…

There were more than twice as many work-related deaths in construction than in any other industry in the last financial year, new figures reveal. Stats from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show that 45 building workers died on the job in 2022/23, up from 29 in 2021/22 and 39…

Six companies, including Morgan Sindall Property Services, have been charged with breaches of fire safety laws over their role in the construction of a retirement village which burnt down in August 2019. The companies are being prosecuted by the Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service for failing to comply with the…

Two victims of the 2020 Bow crane collapse are suing a housing association and structural engineers over the incident, and have slammed the length of time the official investigation is taking. On 8 July 2020, 85-year-old June Harvey (pictured below) died after a 27-metre crane crashed through the roof of…

The largest housing association in the country is conducting a procurement process to appoint three suppliers for asbestos removal and remediation. Clarion Housing Group (CHG), which manages 125,000 properties, is also aiming to select three suppliers for asbestos surveying and air monitoring. CHG estimated the overall value of the procurement…

“Highly disturbing” figures suggesting safety inspections have fallen to a record low have sparked criticism from a union. A Freedom of Information request from Unite found the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) undertook 7,647 unannounced inspections in 2022-23 – down two per cent on the previous year. The union said…

Contractors have been turning down deals to remediate the country's most desperate school buildings because of inflation risks, a report has warned. In a report published today (28 June), the National Audit Office (NAO) says a major government initiative to remediate blocks at 500 education institutions in the direst need…

Dandara has become the 49th developer to agree to sign the government’s fire safety contract. This means only two firms – Abbey Developments and Rydon Homes, the sister company to Grenfell contractor Rydon Maintenance – continue to resist signing in the face of mounting pressure. Housebuilder Dandara is the latest…

As £750m of work is announced, CN asks if a change in governance will finally get the job done Parliament has alerted contractors to £750m of work coming up on the historic Palace of Westminster and its wider estate. Over the second half of this decade, a wide range of…