14 C O N T E X T 1 0 6 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 8 SUPPORTING COLUMNS Playing the health and safety game Engineer Brian Morton advises on how to prevent buildings at risk being lost due to the interpretation of health and safety requirements by developers and their professionals. Historic buildings that are on the at-risk registers, or are in poor condition but are saveable, are being lost at an increasing rate due to the interpretation of health and safety requirements by developers and their professionals. They use health and safety to condemn historic buildings, resulting in demolition. I have recently been involved in a case where a conservation officer became concerned that planning consent was being given for the demolition of historic buildings. Structural engineers’ reports had quoted the Health and Safety Executive statement that works could not be safely carried out to these buildings due to the requirements of the Health and Safety Act. The conservation officer asked me if the practice would be willing to take him and an interested health and safety inspector to buildings that were in a poor state, and to completed buildings that had been at risk, so that we could explain the principles of our approach. The result of these visits was that the inspector, through the conservation officer, asked me to talk to his team, explaining the methodology of carrying out the works involved in these situations. During these visits, the inspector explained that what appeared to be happening in his area of the country was that a developer would approach the inspectorate, indicating that the building under consideration was in such a poor state that demolition was the only solution. In turn, the inspector asked for an engineering report. Inevitably the report indicated that it was not possible to save the building because of the danger of carrying out work required to stabilise it. Lacking the necessary experience associated with possible methods of carrying out work to buildings in a poor state, the inspector stated that he and his officers had to accept that the buildings could not be repaired safely.The conservation officer explained that a planning application would appear, together with an engineer’s report which quoted the health and safety inspector’s concerns.The planning authority then had no alternative but to give consent for demolition. My experience of buildings in poor condition is that adequate risk assessments need to be carried out on proposals for repair and restoration. A method is needed for carrying out the work in such a way that the risks are minimised. The health and safety inspector was shown copies of risk assessments carried out on one of the projects he visited. He considered these to be quite adequate, and certainly he would not prevent works being carried out if he received such documentation from a building The Toll House at Coalbrookdale: work completed rescuing a building at risk on a world heritage site.
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