Posted By Alan Armer
I know that this looks like an exam question but I welcome your views. Are you sitting comortably ....?

I work as a health and safety advisor for a business of 300 people who are housed in a rural office block. It’s surrounded by fields and some woodland. The entrance lane is about 250 metres long and is shared by a local farmer to tend his fields which are currently full of various winter crops. He has advised us that he will need to access the fields almost daily until February.
The lane is paved, lined with mature Walnut trees and has a tarmac pedestrian walkway along one side. (It sounds nice when I write it like this!)

Regardless of the fact that we have monthly visits by a horticultural sub-contractor, usually within a day, the lane and is covered with leaves. In addition the regular visits by the farmer soon put a coating of mud on the lane – although at this time of year it’s only a matter of days before it’s either washed off or the constant traffic wipes it away.
The following controls are in place 1) a10mph speed limit which is rigorously enforced, b) speed bumps, c) a barrier gate at the inner end of the lane, d) the pedestrian walkway is raised (about 10cm) above the lane surface, d) there is street lighting, e) we have a hard sign at each end of the lane (Caution – mud on the road) and f) we have at least monthly visits by gardeners to trim bushes, etc and blow away leaves.

Are you still with me??

Due to recent muddiness we contacted our gardeners for a quote to bring in a full size street cleaner truck. They quoted £450 plus disposal but warned that due to our situation it could be cleared one day only to be dirty the next. On that basis I felt that we had sufficient controls in place and emailed all site staff to take extra care during the next few months and explained the reasons why. We also include awareness in our site inductions. All seemed more than fair to me until I was made aware of a staff member who we suspect has taken previous employers to court saying that it wasn’t sufficient to email a warning that we wouldn’t be cleaning the lane (although she forgot to note that the email said that if it got too bad we would re-consider) and that someone would slip and we would be held responsible.

I believe the, whatever we do, we will carry some level of responsibility, but feel that we have done all that is practical. Oh yeah, I’m doing the written risk assessment tomorrow.

Has anyone any thoughts that might either help, or assure me that I’ve done everything correctly?
Alan

Posted By Sam Talbot
Shop around. We pay £10/hr for our roadsweeper, all be it in the West Midlands, so they are possibly more plentiful.

Regards,
Sam.