Morning all,

I'd appreciate a bit of a sense check if possible before I go back with some recommendations to my employer.

One of the sites I work on has a busy car park that is crossed by a seldom used public footpath. Footpath is painted in green paint for its entirety and the car park is used both by staff and members of the public. The area that concerns me is a section of car park road which crosses the footpath.

The footpath line marking continues straight across the car park road, giving the impression to anyone walking that they have 'right of way'. There are no sign posts or other warnings for vehicles or pedestrians.

The vehicle approach to the footpath is moving uphill so the green road paint is difficult to see when driving and the view of approaching pedestrians is obscured by parked vehicles.

I'm seeing a risk of collision with members of the public who are owed a duty under the occ. liability act. Over familiarity of the staff with car park and lack of familiarity by visiting drivers adds to the chance of an incident occuring.

There is no chance of shutting the footpath, nor is it reasonably practicable to not use the car park.

I'm thinking to recommend that:

• A 'Caution - Pedestrians crossing' sign is installed on a signpost where the footpath intersects the car park road so that drivers can see it on approach;
• Signs on entry and exit for pedestrians warning of moving vehicles.
• A 'Caution - vehicles crossing' sign either side of the roadway to warn pedestrians
• Changing the colour of the footpath from solid green fill to dashed green external lines where it crosses the road to indicate a warning to pedestrians.

I considererd whether to install a Stop sign for vehicles at the path but not sure if this is too much. Any help or advice as to whether you think the above would be enough to discharge duty under occ liability act, or whether I am missing something else, would be greatly appreciated!

Originally Posted by: AcornsConsult

Who have you consulted to establish the route?   Where old,footpaths have crossed a field, some farmers cut a path the rough the crop and some provide a cut around their crop which seems to be an acceptable solution.   having made the path a high profile green colour, whatever else you do will not really change a walkers idea of their priority. I'm also wondering why the path has been so highly marke when the carpark is also,open to the public's... they can walk were ever they like within the car park. Is it really essentially to mark it? What would be the consequence of it being just a basic sign post as seen on almost every other footpath I've seen! Or are we just following an idea that was made in the past? out of interest, does the path cross any car parking spaces.

Route has been confirmed with local authority, employer is trying to get it removed but to no avail.

The path was painted green many years ago, which has probably led me to not even question whether it needs painting at all. Footpath does not cross any parking bays. Now you mention it I suppose that it's reasonable to expect drivers in a car park to be aware of pedestrians and vice versa, whether visiting the site or passing through.

Maybe just a simple sign saying 'Caution - Moving vehicles' is needed at either end of footpath then?

While the local authority will not give you the right to close the footpath - you may be able to get permision to divert it (if a suitable alternate route is avialable). This happens quit a bit in my experiance as a walker.

But as others have said what is the risk. A lot depends on the layout and usage of the carpark. A few warning signs may be enough.

What actual and tangible benefit will installing signage provide?

A good majority of publicly accessible car parks (especially the free ones) have minimal or no signage at the entrance or crossing points.

Signage where it is present is more to do with charges and penalties for parking.

They will not "indemnify" the occupier against any claim for death or injury arising from a collision - here you would be reliant upon the driver of the vehicle holding insurance.

Logic and common sense say one thing, then there is the HSE view. We had a walkway used by 20 people max per day. We had a car park laid out like you could find anywhere ( 24 spaces 12 per side) where the pedestrians walked along the access roadway between the rows of cars. This was deemed unacceptable to the HSE.

All of my argument about it was no different to the Tesco’s down the road or anywhere else, was dismissed. My argument that the legislation around this was after the building and its car park etc had been built was also dismissed (though it may him go away and consult with others for a while). I even made sure we stood in the middle of the area, for over an hour discussing the issues, at which point I asked him if at any point he had felt unsafe. His response to this was no, but he could not accept the layout as someone could get run over next week. He simply would not move away from the need to segregate pedestrians and vehicles.

Cost us £2k to make the car park smaller with lines and posts to make a walkway around it. It reduced the size of the car park and what was left more difficult to park in. Some cars now had to park on the busy main road where there was far more potential to be run over.

They did not actually come originally about the car park, but another issue from a complaint which was not an issue as we were doing everything ok, in that aspect. He just noticed the car park.

Not exactly the same scenario, but not so far away.

Chris

Hopefully that inspector has been given the push.

It is impossible to fully segregate vehicles and pedestrians as the latter are drivers and passengers of the former. Even within the premises a driver has to aproach the vehicle they are intending to use.

The only issue we ever noted was during a factory extension the local authority insisted our car park re-marking included provision of two disabled bays.

I should imagine he is still there, he earned them best part of £1k in FFI ( not included in the £2k I noted earlier).

It was a few years ago and we confirmed we had done as requested on the Notice. We expected him to call back at some random point, but no (or at least not we were aware of). I guess there was no more money to be made from us as he looked at everything under the sun on his first visit and could only find issue with the car park.

At the time I felt that he had issued the notice and then found it difficult to back away from it. It was an interesting experience and at least the local Manager felt I was on his side for once :0)

Chris

There have been few appeals against FFI "Notices of Contravention", just as there are few appeals against Improvement and Prohibition Notices.

In 12 years as an HSE Inspector I never found myself in the Tribunal. One or two recipients of Notices did appeal but when I contacted them to discuss the process they explained that they thought they had to fill in the appeal form (!) and in each case withdrew their appeals whilst also complying with the Notices.

In the same 12 years I only had one company fail to comply with an Improvement Notice. They were duly prosecuted for this and some of the underlying offences.

Since leaving HSE I have drafted the appeals against two Improvement Notices, but we did not get as far as the Tribunal as the Inspector under instruction from his boss' boss withdrew the Notices.

We don't know whether Chris' advice was to tell the Inspector "to get lost"! 

Similar experiance to Peter - 30 years as an LA inspector and only ever saw 1 notice appealed - and the appeal was lost. Inspectors do not know everything and i would always challange if you dont agree with thier findings - but unfortunatly i think some CEO's etc would rather just pay the FFI and keep on the good side.

I assume so, especially after I pointed it out to him! However, he felt it was reasonably practicable if it had the potential to prevent someone getting run over.

How exactly can you argue that there is no chance on earth that someone in a car park would not get run over. He stated that if he was to remove the IN and someone was run over the following week, then we would say the HSE had no issue with the layout.

This made me feel it would have been better if he had not brought it in the first place. When I pointed out that part and the fact the legislation came into for much later than the building was built, he did go away and consult for a while. I still think we were not in the wrong and so many other car parks are similar. As I said I could not find any useful guidance on this, so reasonably practicable is in the eye of the beholder.

Did I think we were right yes, did I think we would win in court against the HSE probably not. It was possible to alter our car park we just had to lose a lot of parking spaces!

Reason why there are not so many successful challenges to the HSE, is simply HS is goal setting and a matter of opinion in a lot of cases, especially where we have reasonably practicable. There are always extremes in both directions, but there is always a large grey area in the middle. We therefore rely on ACOPs, then perhaps guidance, then perhaps British standards, then perhaps industry made up standards. But not all are legally enforceable, but how do you explain why you haven’t (as I was told in a thread about fire escapes). We could debate this for a long time (and have on this site in the past).

Hence my advice to the OP, people know what a zebra crossing is and know instinctively to check for moving vehicles, and if car drivers can’t see the road surface, then a signpost is not unreasonable. These are measure you would expect in general life, especially it was described as a busy car park, with people emerging from behind cars suddenly. Seldom used also means regular drivers will not expect someone crossing. Whatever is decided have a risk assessment and be able to justify your decisions either way you go.

Chris