Category: Health and Safety

Another steaming pile of news about ‘health and safety gone mad’. And for once it might even be right. This week in the Daily Mail and the Telegraph a seemingly nutty story breaks about Telford and Wrekin Council.

It seems that David Ottley, Telford & Wrekin’s sports and recreation manager, wrote in a letter to a member of the public:

Our Town Park staff approach adults that are not associated with any children in the Town Park and request the reason for them being there. In particular, this applies to those areas where children or more vulnerable groups gather, such as play facilities and the entrances to play areas.

Continue reading Lone walker: trouble?

We’ve heard it all before… health and safety gone mad! Council bureaucrats stifle fun for little Johnny. And all that. It’s a tedious debate for all concerned. Usually the argument against health and safety is that common sense should prevail. And of course it should. Really. But that means common sense both on the part of the provider, and, crucially, the user. Lest we forget, here are some good reasons why rangers and their ilk can sometimes be a bit cautious about the risks that people will willingly take in public places.

El Caminito del Rey is a walkway dating from 1901, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Álora in Málaga, Spain. Continue reading Health and safety… gone mad?

And if you thought a day-glo kilt was trivial – just wait until you see this!

The Ranger doesn’t recall any instruction in this kind of technique when he was learning. More’s the pity. Still, there’s always the possibility that it wasn’t real. Mmm, kickback…

Idling through the latest equipment catalogue of Swedish industrial clothing firm Blåkläder, The Ranger was delighted to find a hi-viz kilt: Continue reading Protective equipment for everyone

Simon Jenkins in the Guardian wades in again with the voice of common sense – this time in an article called “Those who walk under trees are at risk from these terrorising inspectors” he’s commiserating with the poor old National Trust who had a tree fall over on their land at Dunham Massey, and are worried about tree risk.

Trees at Dunham Massey

With typical gusto Jenkins compares the Health and Safety Executive to stormtroopers, fascists, and, for good measure, Guantánamo Bay. But whilst his wrath is magnificent, he has allowed it to carry him to such heights of righteous finger-wagging that he weakens his own argument, thus offering ammunition to those who would further constrain tree-management with regulation. He writes:

The HSE is… continuing its inquiry, to pin a case on the National Trust for criminal negligence under the Health and Safety at Work Act. The crime, presumably, is neglectful ownership of any tree that might fall over in a high wind. If the Trust can be found guilty, lawyers for the bereaved family may sue it in the civil courts for damages. The cost in litigation alone will be enormous. The case has traumatised the National Trust and its park staff nationwide. They are responsible for 6m trees under which millions of human beings wander daily. Should they chop down every old tree, or only some, or close all treed areas to the public? Nobody knows. The case applies to all landowners in the public domain, which under the right to roam could rise to billions of trees. When Trust staff are asked what most concerns them, they no longer cite lack of money or visitor numbers or interfering management. They cite the HSE. This body, with its terrorising inspectors, its box-ticking approach to safety, and its agents enforcing its edicts to the letter, is feared and loathed with equal passion.

The Ranger, as a former NT manager and also currently in the position of being responsible for some of those ‘billions’ of trees, has to take issue with some of these assertions. It may well be that HSE are being heavy-handed here – or maybe they are not. Perhaps it will need a judge to decide that one. But either way Jenkins is ranting outside the realms of reality here. Let’s pick some of this apart.

The crime, presumably, is neglectful ownership of any tree that might fall over in a high wind.

An erroneous presumption. ‘Neglectful ownership’ is not in itself criminal. Any tree might fall over in a high wind. Yes, any tree. Even the best-managed and most recently inspected tree. Owning a tree which falls over is not in itself a crime and could not be. A crime, as Jenkins implies but neatly skirts around explaining, could be neglect of the duty of care that a landowner and employer has to take reasonable steps to ensure that their trees do not harm people. But that doesn’t really trip off the tongue, does it? Let’s proceed.

The case has traumatised the National Trust and its park staff nationwide… Should they chop down every old tree, or only some, or close all treed areas to the public? Nobody knows.

Quite the contrary. They know perfectly well what to do with their trees, in almost all cases. They may not always have done it – but that’s a different argument entirely. Park staff are very unlikely to be traumatised nationwide – although no doubt a few of those involved with the case at Dunham Massey are rightly a bit worried. The National Trust have one of the best and most well-known policies on tree safety that exists in the industry. It has been used since 1997, has been tested in legal cases, is widely copied, and was one of the first such policies to seriously address the issue of combining the public and trees in different conditions. The basic idea is to risk-assess trees and groups of trees, zone them, and inspect accordingly, recording the process. The policy gives an achievable strategy to achieve this that most public tree owners could reasonably easily follow. Not only do the NT have a presumption in favour of public access in areas with many trees, they also are very concerned to keep ancient trees going when many other less-enlightened bodies would fell them. No, the image of all tree-managers wringing their hands in miserable confusion is simply wrong. The question is not likely to be “What shall we do with our trees?”, but “Can we show we actually did what we know we should have done?”

When Trust staff are asked what most concerns them, they no longer cite lack of money or visitor numbers or interfering management. They cite the HSE.

Well, do they? And did they ever cite the former issues? If the Ranger knows the National Trust, one thing you won’t get from their staff is a consensus on anything. This one might, actually be true. But without a source it’s simply incredible.

…all landowners in the public domain, which under the right to roam could rise to billions of trees.

Finally, ‘billions’ of trees. Well, a quick look at the Forestry Commission website suggests that in England, there are some five hundred million publicly owned trees. It seems likely that billions are not really on the cards. Sorry, Sir Simon. NT staff are a canny lot, and their forestry people are some of the most enlightened in the country. If Jenkins had started his tirade with an incident involving, say, any one of many hundreds of local authorities, he might have given his argument a little more credibility. Not every organisation has the policy and practice of the NT, or if they do, they cannot demonstrate it so readily. Indeed, Jenkins may well be right in his fundamental point. But sadly, he has picked the wrong exemplar this time.

The Health and Safety Commission launches a campaign – no surprises there. But this one’s a bit different. It’s under the provocative title ‘Get a Life‘ and invites us to

…focus on real risks ” those that cause real harm and suffering ” and stop concentrating effort on trivial risks and petty health and safety…

The Ranger is delighted with this approach, and the common-sense advice given on the HSE website to try to put this into practice. Far too often he is faced with a complainant asking for unreasonably onerous precautions to be taken to ameliorate some tiny hazard. People need to learn that RISK is not the same as DANGER.

A dangerous pastime – or is it a risky one?

Of course, it is dangerous to walk along the top of an unprotected cliff, as The Ranger recently did on a very exhilarating windy day at Binnel Bay on the Isle of Wight (see image above). But what is the risk? Actually, not much, if you take sensible precautions. For that reason, there are no fences at Binnel. However, elsewhere, where the cliff is unstable and the danger is not in itself obvious, the risk of an incident is much higher and areas are quite regularly fenced off. Hundreds of thousands of people enjoy this delightful unspoilt coastline every year. Of the very few that do fall off, the majority, sadly, do so either deliberately, or in the process of undertaking an activity so obviously risky that no amount of fencing or safety warning signs would have detered them in the first place. The Ranger is very pleased with the continuing development of the point of view that we are entitled to be exposed to a proportionate amount of danger, in order to appreciate the benefits of a natural environment.