Posted By Della Pearlman BSI’s document – PD 5304:2005 Guidance on safe use of machinery, has a section on the layout of machinery and plant – saying briefly that a machine should be installed with due regard to its interactions with other machines, and gangways should be wide enough to provide access for tools, materials and people. It does give general guidance, but it doesn’t give specific distances. In its ergonomic annex, it does give safety distances e.g for reaching up or down. Having looked at quite a lot of documents, (from BSI, HSE etc) there doesn’t seem to be anything that gives actual measured distances, although there are a number of documents with general guidance on health and safety - but presumably the makers of each individual piece of machinery will know how much space is required, And you will have to take into account Building Regulations on e.g, gangway widths for fire routes, disabled access etc? If you are looking for information on schools, there might be more in the DCSF Building Bulletins, CLEAPS etc.

Posted By Jay Joshi I very much doubt that there is anything specific, but you should consider in all the 3 dimensions:- 1)Ergonomics 2)clearances required for maintenance of the equipment--suppliers usually state this 3)what you process in the machine for example the maximum size of the material being processed 4)Normal and emergency access and egress

Posted By Phil Rose I don't quite understand why it would be contrary to regs to specify '..what you want..'! Surely if 'what you wanted' was properly considered taking into account ergonomic and anthropometric factors etc, how would this be contrary to the MHSWR? Could you expand on your thinking?