Last week I visited one of our social housing contracts and to my amazement, on the 1st lift of the scaffold was a todler playing around whilst being supervised by his mother. I have had previous reports of residents having bbq's on our scaffolds and even accessing it to check the quality of the works, but this was the first time I actually witnessed it.

We have tried everything under the sun to prevent unathorized access including, letters, chats, alarms, notices, ladders being removed,etc. The only thing we didn't try is blocking their windows which is what this post is about.

I have contacted the HSE and the Fire Brigade asking for advice and they have both provided me with very vague answers (as expected).

I am concerned that some resident might fall or drop something off the scaffold and cause serious injury or even death...

Any opinions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks 

This should have been sorted back to the planning stage:

1) How long were works scheduled?

2) What type of property is involved (flats / maisonette / house)?

3) Residents to be removed (take it from your post they were intended to remain)?

4) What input or co-operation occurred with the landlord / housing provider?

This sounds like one of those situations where everyone assumed someone else was doing something.

From your position the starting discussion should have been property vacated and any counter argument based around agreed (and implementable) control measures.

If this is a set of multi level occupied property you can be sure barring windows will attract a lot of bad press (and consequences should the worst happen).

In the old days residents would be placed in temporary accommodation whilst works were conducted. In our current penny counting climate there is unfortunately a cavalier attitude to the safety of others by the holder of the purse strings.

This is social housing so other than the struck through children/walking man/face out palm pictograms seen around building sites how do you know any text would be understood by the residents?

Even with pictograms there is too much assumption the general public understand what is workplace signage.

When you add in text have you considerd they may have dyslexia or learning difficulties and in some cases may not even have English as a second language let alone first.

Hi Danut

The Client could have stipulated that window opening restrictors be provided at least for the duration of the Contract but it is probably a bit late for that.

As Roundtuit indicates, the Client should also have been able to predict that such tenant behaviorus were reasonably foreseeable and COULD have specified a high level of security presence "out of hours", though what would be "reasonably practicable" might not be sufficient to deter all unauthorised access.

I recall stopping outside a housing estate undergoing a refurbishment programme on an October evening and looking at the site security following a complaint. 2m Heras-type fence, bottom ladders removed from each VACATED building, + a couple of secutity guards wandering around.

Next morning I arrived at the office to find details of an accident that night. Teenager from one of the buildings yet to be worked on had broken through the fence, had scaled the lower part of a scaffold [followed by a security guard!] had climbed up to the top platform and had fallen about 10m sustaining head injury [which proved to be not that serious].

So, I started asking QQ to get the comment "Keeping the public away has been a nightmare", the sorts of words that would usually have elicited the response "you could have predicted that when you tendered and costed for the appropriate precautions" but on this occasion I took the comment more seriously.

Turned out that the youths had broken into the site office, broken the new fangled computer [Long, long time ago!] and had been seen off by the secuiity guards.

The following night more youths had broken in this time armed with machetes and the security guards decided that they would [reasonably] take flight.

So, there are limits to what is "reasonably practicable".

So, perhaps yet more education.

The residents may not appreciate that Building Standards require that any balustrade or similar on a modern structure should be at least 1100mm height above the surface from which somebody might fall AND with no gaps large enough to get a sphere of 100mm diameter through.

In contrast, the rules set in the Work at Height Regulations are such that you could easily get something MUCH larger than a 100mm dia ball INCLUDING a toddler falling between mid-rail and toe-board.

Now if this is explained and the odd resident or carer continues to permit children on to the scaffold "out of hours" then may be the landlord needs to take some action.

There are people who will simply not do as they are requested almost as a matter of principle. They see fencing and barriers as a challenge to be overcome. As Peter  says  your duty is keep them as safe as reasonably practicable, not an absolute duty,  short of actually evacuating the building for the duration you may well have done everything you can do.

Originally Posted by: Roundtuit

This is social housing so other than the struck through children/walking man/face out palm pictograms seen around building sites how do you know any text would be understood by the residents?

Even with pictograms there is too much assumption the general public understand what is workplace signage.

When you add in text have you considerd they may have dyslexia or learning difficulties and in some cases may not even have English as a second language let alone first.

I believe it to be quite simple to arrange for an interpreter to attend site for communicating with the residents, once you learn their preferred language.