Rank: Forum user 
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I support a different team and was therefore able to objectively view the image. It's a street scene looking mostly upon a building that has a scaffold accross it's entire facade. It's clearly part of the football celebrations but it's overloaded with fans, there must be hundreds on it.
Has anyone else seen this? Concerned? This is the fine line between killjoy elf 'n' safety and a major disaster avoiding intervention.
Perhaps one of our scaffolding bretheren can provide an analysis...
Mick
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Rank: Forum user
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Rank: Super forum user 
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I assume they were essentially trespassing.
I agree they were lucky it did not collapse - something for the police to think about maybe?
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Rank: Super forum user
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I wonder how many of those on the scaffold would have been willing to 'blame' the police if it HAD collapsed? For not preventing them from being absolute idiots! (And to be clear - I'm talking about the idiocy of joining their mates on what is clearly a grossly overloaded scaffold - not the idiocy of being a football supporter (of any flavour or colour)).
For me - this is way over the 'fine line' where we should be questioning whether intervention is appropriate. YES, it would have been appropriate. This is not killjoy elfinsafety - it is absolute cold hard truth that very many people were extremely fortunate not to be killed or seriously injured. The "authorities" (the police...) had a duty to prevent that from occurring. (as well as the scaffolders??)
There won't be an inquiry because this time we wuz lucky.. Next time....??? Will any lessons be learned from this? I doubt it. "Society" tends to need its Hillsboros and Bradford Citys before "society" properly sits up and takes notice.
Oh dear I seem to have my Mr Grumpy hat on today!
Steve
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Rank: Super forum user 
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steve e ashton wrote:
There won't be an inquiry because this time we wuz lucky.. Oh dear I seem to have my Mr Grumpy hat on today!
Steve
I agree with you, on the face of it this looks like a very serious near miss and warrants a comment from the HSE.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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There are several "yellow vest" wearers evident on the second and third lifts (both videos) and one yellow vest and one MoP(?) at what appears to be an unprotected edge at a higher level on the main photo.
There could be trouble ahead for a contractor maybe..........
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Rank: Super forum user
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would have made a really good collapse disaster story. It was clearly well tied, looking on the bright side of life.!!!!!
Bob
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Rank: Super forum user
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Judging from the number of football fans shown by the video clips to be on the scaffold, it seems that the scaffold was of very sturdy construction and very effectively tied into the building. Also, the distribution of fans on it - most on the lower levels and relatively few on the upper ones - may have been a factor. Given that the scaffold was located on a city centre pavement, it's intriguing to ponder what measures were taken by the scaffold firm to prevent unauthorised people from getting onto the scaffold. Perhaps measures were taken of the sort which usually deter acrobatics by late-night drunks or persons intent on breaking into the building being repaired/restored, but proved insufficient against the large throng of fans intent on gaining a good view of the procession.
Does anyone happen to know if the police and/or anyone else tried to dissuade the fans from scaling the scaffold or persuade them to come down? Furthermore, if there were significant fears about the scaffold being overloaded, what effective measures were available to persuade the fans to come down? Would temporarily halting the procession have worked or would this have caused a riot? Thankfully, though no harm arose from the circumstances in Manchester, it's foreseeable that similar cirumstances involving notably less sturdy scaffolds could occur in future.
As an aside I was intrigued by what appeared in the first video to be a fire developing in premises down the side street opposite the scaffold. However, it transpires from the second video that the fire appears to come from a large firework or distress flare held by someone in the crowd with little regard for the safety of adjacent people.
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Rank: Super forum user
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smith6720 - Thanks for your useful response at #9. Full credit is surely due to the building manager who identified a potentially serious risk and tried against the odds to get something done about it.
At #6 ron hunter commented that the videos showed several yellow vest wearers on the scaffold and that parts of it were incomplete. Your contact might be able to confirm if the yellow vest wearers were scaffolders engaged in erecting or altering the scaffold and found they could do nothing to stop their workplace being invaded by fans.
The webpage with the videos includes a photo of the scaffold with the fans on it and describes it as a "brilliant iconic image of football fandom". It's appropriate to consider the consequences if the scaffolding had collapsed through being subject to an unexpected overloading - certainly death or serious injury to those on the scaffold and those stood below it. As a worst case scenario, add the players on the open topped bus if the collapse had occurred while the bus was passing the scaffold. In any event a scaffold collapse would have provided instead plenty of iconic images of a totally horrific sort. Therefore, as a disaster could foreseeably arise in future through similar circumstances in Manchester or elsewhere, it seems valid for questions to be asked about the adequacy of crowd control during the recent event, including why the building manager was (allegedly) fobbed off by the police when he expressed concern!
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Given that this will be a scenario every year in Manchester (well the red part anyway), it looks like being an issue for local enforcement agencies along with the Local Councils to resolve before next May.
Other cities need not bother.
Happy Friday.
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Rank: Forum user
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David: Why should the council have a role here? (other than highway closures and traffic management).
It's the club who make (or own) the situation. There were many crowd barriers so how did they appear? I assumed this type of event is pre-planned by the organiser in conjunction with the police.
I do agree with the point made by Graham about flares.
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Unbelievable those Operatives who support the same Team on ONE SITE.
Seriously - As per usual Plod stand by and watch a blatant Trespass.
After the event, did the supporters have a wee peek around Site, unaware of Potential Hazards, No doubt most of them have never been up a Scaffold in their life.
You could say this was a breach of Security and a Serious Near Miss into the bargain.
I hope the Scaffold was inspected and the Hilti Ties Tested the next day.
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AS my previous post was removed by mod, due to me implying a swear word!!. the update is that apparently the contractor concerned had given 2 members of the press permission to use scaffold to take pictures, the site manager was asked to remain behind to supervise, on noticing the press on the scaffold the dear football supporters started to climb the heras fencing ,which then gave way, they then made there way up on to site cabins, then on to Haki staircase, this then led them to the scaffold platforms were they proceeeded to tear down the debris netting and the rest as they say was history.
The scaffold was re-inspected and was estimated to have been overloaded to up to x3. There is another event the following day so the scaffold was struck.
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