Posted By rb Picture the scene- I am sat in the beer garden of a lovely country public house on saturday afternoon, just enjoying the sunshine and a cooling pint of their finest whilst reading the newspaper when a gust of wind caught the parasol of the table next me and up-ended the table! Poor bloke sat there with his good lady, now both covered in food and wine! Now, the parasols don't have the sand/ water filled bases as the landlord is too tight to buy them (I know him very well and he has told me as much!!). After replacing the food and drink for his now damp and stained customers he sends out the duty manager to take down ALL the parasols (from the 20-30 tables) quoting health and safety as the reason for them having to be taken down! two things occurred to me- 1. No, you tight-wad it's not a H&S issue, it's a short arms, deep pockets issue! 2. The lack of parasols created another potential hazard and exposed his customers to UV rays from the burning sun. Everyone was left without shelter from the suns rays. Now it doesn't really bother me sat in the sun and I continued to do so quite happily until I had finished the Suduko in the paper, but others left quite sharpish! Need to spoil people's enjoyment? Need to find a reason? Use Health and Safety. Rant over!!!!!!

Posted By holmes1979 Dare i respond to this with a big brother point....... Did you see the episode last week where the Welsh lad was told by big brother that 'For Health and safety reasons, you cannot eat the out of date black pudding and you must leave it in the diary room!' Very funny i thought, would it come under section 7 that all employees must take care of themselves and are contestants employees or volunteers i wonder :-)

Posted By Gary IMD(UK) Has someone missed the point of rb's thread?! Take care!

Posted By Graeme Removing the risk to remove liklihood of injury!! The best option in most cases on a temp basis, proactive rather than reactive.

Posted By J Knight Hi, Yes, that's it exactly; instead of saying 'it's H&S' we should give an explanation - an actual reason. At Sheffield's Hallamshire hospital by the multi-storey on A Road (for some reason the student's always nick the road signs for this one...) there's a sign on some railings that says 'For H&S reasons don't park bicycles against the fence'. What H&S reasons? As far as I'm concerned this is no explanation, and its simply not open to argument in most people's eyes. So if there are valid H&S reasons we have to be prepared to state clearly what they are, John

Posted By Ian Mitchell Totally in agreement with the last couple of posts. If we are to tackle the 'elfnsafety' culture we should offer explanations and reasoning. Most people, if faced with the actual facts behind the decision, adopt a more understanding attitude. Bunging things under H+S becuse nobody else wants it, or letting unqualified people in the public realm make H+S decisions undermines any chance of improving our image.

Posted By Kelvin Can you see managment of any organisation saying that you cant do this or this has been changed because we are to cheap to pay for the appropriate controls. Chris Moyles told the nation that they couldnt have a garden/leisure area on the roof because of H&S. Ive never come across legislation that says you cant, though i have seen legislation that may make it a touch more expensive. Kelvin

Posted By Graeme I assume you havnt read the packaging on a crate of beer recentlty, white writing, black box, WARNING consumption of this entire crate is hazardous to health.....seen it on a few brands now or words to those effect HA

Posted By Robert S Woods The Landlords long pockets are costing him money if customers walk out because of the lack of brolleys. Serves him right the short sighted (erm asterisks aren't allowed) person.