Posted By Ken Taylor From time to time we hire out parts of our premises (schools, swimming pools, chapels, etc) for use by others. I'm concerned to ensure that we have a common hire or letting contract that adequately covers matters of health and safety (eg requires the users to ensure that the premises are safe and suitable for the purpose for which they are being hired, reporting defects, etc). Having failed to obtain a useful standard document from our solicitors, I wonder whether anyone out there would like to share theirs with me - or at least suggest some well-tried clauses.

Posted By Ken Taylor Thanks for your response Michael. Whilst we have a general duty to provide safe premises, we are not entirely in control of the activities that may take place during the hiring - other than to have agreed the purpose for which the letting has been granted. Eg. Different lighting levels are necessary for different levels of sports activity within the same game; we cannot reasonably examine every square centimetre of our sports fields before each use and what if an animal digs a new hole overnight?; will the hirer try to sit too many people on a stage: will they use things for a purpose for which they were not intended and then try to say that we had said that it was OK to do so; etc, etc. Whilst not wanting to try to avoid our own duties of care (or to curtail lettings for community use), I feel that we, also, need to clearly require the hirer to agree in contract to ensure that they are safe for the actual purpose that they intend to follow - in addition to undertakings and safe-guards on insurance; proper staffing levels; competence; use of safe plant and equipment; observance of published codes of practice; emergency arrangements; notification of accidents, incidents, defects, etc; etc. I rather hoped that our Solicitor could have produced an 'off-the-peg' form that, with a few enhancements, would have met our needs - but, this not being the case, all donations would be gratefully received!