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Construction companies can benefit from Olympic health and safety successes - research shows
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Firstly it must be applauded that the 2012 Olympics I believe was the first where no one was killed during the construction of the Park, village and other venues - lets see if this happens in Rio!
My perception of the report that has since been produced is that the construction industry can learn from the project that running a healthy and safe site does not need to cost a lot of money.
This is where I have an issue, the Olympic project cost a huge amount of public money and employed a huge number of contractors on one big site. Facilities and infrastructure were put into the site and when you look at the cost, a very small percentage of the overall building cost and relatively small amount for each person on site.
My question is how can we get the Client to pay for the same facilities and other items such as sexual heath clinic and the like on small sites where there may be 10 -20 contractors / operatives.
I am not being negative about the situation, I firmly believe that we should be providing a healthy and safe environment for all construction workers, but I don't agree that there is a lesson to be learnt because we already know what we should be doing.
I would like to see opinion of others in the construction safety industry
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Rank: Super forum user 
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I have said and written much the same. Not wishing to be a party pooper but, the Olympics was funded by public money - lots of it. Hence there was scope for state of the art facilities, machinery, management and all the rest. Sure, a major project was successfully built without a fatality, but I do not believe for one moment that if this had been a private sector investment the same levels of health and safety management would have been applied.
What can we learn from the Olympics? Invest enough of money in a project and you can improve health and safety performance - nothing new there I'm afraid to say.
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Rank: Super forum user
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I would like to see the accident stats in total.
Given the rampant bullying endemic to the project I doubt they are reliable, even if they exist.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Yes, there was public money etc, but I very much doubt there was an infinite amount. One the final budget was set, uncluding contingency, they had to manage it. Obviously, the learning in most cases is lilkely to be for large projects, but I have no doubt that there was an excellent Health & Safety input, especially during the constuction stage when (this has not been widely reported in the popular media) it was under the jurisdiction of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and not LOGOC. It is a pity that we seem to be negative when we have done a very good job out of it and after all, this is comparative. Yes, we may know about some of it, but in case of ODA the standards were robustly compiled and implemented. Less cynicism please. Also, not all private sector investment has lower health and safety standards. For example, T5, despite having fatalities was better managed:- http://www.nce.co.uk/saf...tandards/1995094.article http://www.hse.gov.uk/co.../engagement/heathrow.pdf
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Rank: Super forum user
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Cynicism...call it what you want, I call it realism.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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johnmurray wrote:I would like to see the accident stats in total.
Given the rampant bullying endemic to the project I doubt they are reliable, even if they exist. Not sure if the stats are in the Public Domain but I can assure you that being a member of Team Stadium & additionally the SELT they are very reliable - don't know what you mean either about 'rampant bullying' - there wasn't any on the Olympic Stadium project to my knowledge - a joy to work & be involved with. However, I do agree with Ray Rapp - plenty of resources, both human & financial, made a considerable difference.
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Rank: Super forum user
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We were involved heavily in the Aquatic Centre then in various areas up until the opening.
In all cases found the PC strict but accomodating in all relevant Health and Safety matters.
MS & RAs presented checked, changed with agreement by all parties.
There was obviously a lot of money thrown at it but no bullying or jobsworth experienced throughout.
The project like the games themselves were a success and for me personally a well ran site and easy to work on providing you complied.
Cerainly far less hassle than Wembley,T5 and White City and now for our sins Cross Rail.
Regards Alex
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Rank: Super forum user
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alexmccreadie13 wrote:We were involved heavily in the Aquatic Centre then in various areas up until the opening.
In all cases found the PC strict but accomodating in all relevant Health and Safety matters.
MS & RAs presented checked, changed with agreement by all parties.
There was obviously a lot of money thrown at it but no bullying or jobsworth experienced throughout.
The project like the games themselves were a success and for me personally a well ran site and easy to work on providing you complied.
Cerainly far less hassle than Wembley,T5 and White City and now for our sins Cross Rail.
Regards Alex Totally agree - and as for Wembley..... dreadful. Probably the only job that I've been involved in that compares to Olympic Stadium project would be the Emirates. On both occasions working for the same PC funnily enough.
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Construction companies can benefit from Olympic health and safety successes - research shows
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