Posted By Luke. John, Its not best practice and its hard to say without knowing the details... but i suppose it could be used as a TEMPORARY measure until you have installed a more secure guard rail depending on your risk assessment. BUT make sure you have it set back from the edge of the excavation by 1.5-2 meters, this will keep people far enough away from the excavation. We tend to put big red and white timber sleepers down which act as a vehicle block and then secure handrails off that. simples. Naturally your risk assessment will depend on the amount of people on site, distance of fall, how long the excavation will be open for. The problem with it is as follows: its flimsy, its gets knocked off and it WILL NOT support the weight of someone falling against it. If you decided to keep that type of fencing up think of this... try and defend your actions as being reasonably practicable if the worst happened... you would struggle..

Posted By johnwaterson2773 Tanks for the response. The fence will be erected on an MOD site and the excavation is about 900mm deep for ducting to go in. But my thoughts are with hard type fencing which i have used in the past. Thanks