Posted By Ken Urquhart Ernest. Are you giving a Manual handling talk on the Excavation/Trenching work or on the Cable Laying/Pulling work. If it is the former then it will presumably involve setting up the work area and the handling of all the equipment and consumables, then creating the excavation and incorporating/using all the related equipment eg: Road breakers/jack hammers; pedestrian barriers; temporary road signs; road cones; trench shoring equipment and component devices, trench sheets, adjstable screw jacks; access devices - ldders; temporary lighting; pumps;portable generators; compressors etc., etc., If it is the latter then it presumably includes the drums of cable, and related cabling equipment and its transportation, and offloading. Guidance on this could be obtained from the cable manufacturers themselves. Approach your local Electricity supply company if you are not one yourself and speak to there engineering teams who I am sure will be able to direct you to information on best and safest practice for handling and pulling cables and cable components. Look at the Institution of Electrical Engineers web site www.iee.org.uk Contact manufacturers of cable handling equipment, such as powered and non powered winches for pulling cable; pulleys; roller blocks; drum stands, etc., etc. Within the Construction Confederation safety section they should have some information (Used to be the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors and the Builing Employers Confederation; within these or the current umbrella organisation there is I am sure, or there used to be a Public Utilities Contractors section, and I am sure that it is likely to exist in one form or another and will have cable handling guidance and safety information. For photos or guidance look around you out in the public domain. With a digital camera you can quickly, simply and economically put together your own safety and safety related reference library of photos of actual work. "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!. Look on the internet news pages and other sites and download graphics and or actual photographs from news items. (Copyright note: I am not sure what the rules for this might be but if you give source acknowledgement and use the material for training purposes and not for personal or commercial gain I don't think that you will be attracting retribution). For the trenching Safety itself see CIRIA Trenching Practice report 97 Smith and Adams. Also refer to the HSE publication HSG 185 Health & safety in Excavations; "Be safe & Shore" Aspects that could afect the manual handling work, presumably it is being done outsiade in the open air, would be: The weather conditions; the season of the year for weather expectancy; ground water; the work time - day or night; any environmental constraints; access and the proximity of public/transportation systems - this might restrict how close you can get equipment and materials and thus affect the choice of manual handling accesories. Consider also Confined spaces, you referred to cables underground. Did you mean the cables are to be placed/laid in underground ducts or trunking or tunnels, or are they being placed/pulled into a trench/excavation and then tile/ribbon protected and backfilled. If you are truly installing underground in ducts/tunnels etc., then Confined spaces becomes a major part of your Safety consideration. From a manual handling point of view in such a location other things to consider are: Access; ability to use the chosen Manual handling aids or equipment; the impact of PPE on the workers, eg:- does it make there task more difficult because it restricts mobility; does it restrict work outputs because the work location and environment reduce output due to physical demands. Also you will have to think about respirable atmosphere; Gas monitoring; ventilation; lighting; Surface support personal; rescue/Emergency equipment etc., etc., All I have tried to do here is give you pointers. You know your audiences needs and the realities of the work but some or all of these pointers should assist you. Hope this helps. Regards. Ken Urquhart. You can e-mail me on:kenneth@pcg-group.com if you wish to discuss further.