Morning Cerisa

I don't know whether removing skirting boards would be Temporary Works as I haven't seen all the design documentation - probably not but one for a competent engineer or building surveyor to assess.

....where the word competent means someone who knows about such structures, not some structural engineer who has spent their whole life dealing with modern buildings.

.....and depending on how historic this building, there may not be many competent people around, and they come with an appropriately high price tag!.

Which takes us to a point well before anyone was contemplating removing and temporarily storing skirting boards in a trolley.

Your historic building wasn't built to Eurocodes and may have elements that were overengineered compared with modern standards or underengineered.

and what I (and probably you) don't know is whether the skirting boards are simply decorative or have been wedged in such that their removal might increase or decrease load paths in the building.

Note that I mentioned decrease as that might be just as bad as increase.

Supposing you have a building that has settled, well if you decrease the load, then it might be literally and metaphorically unsettled by dccreasing static loads and impacting the overall load path.

For perspective, I live in an 1880 converted townhouse. Up in one of the roof spaces are three huge lead water tanks which are no longer used. I could get someone in the cut them up and sell the lead but I won't do that as it would be likely to unsettle the building (which, as you might expect HAS settled).

So, you need to see what the design package says. What does the Pre Construction Information for the project say about both temporary and permanent works design requirements?

If the answer is "nothing" or "very little", you have a problem and somebody needs to call a meeting and there is probably a contractor "claim" coming up.

I think there maybe some confusion as to what temporary works (TW) are and maybe someone is thinking that it is the trolley? The british standard  5975 identifies TW as an “engineered solution” used to support or protect either an existing structure or the permanent works during construction, or to support an item of plant or equipment, or the vertical sides or side-slopes of an excavation during construction operations on site or to provide access. Using a trolley to support and move skirting boards is a manual handling aid and therefore not part of temporary works in my opinion.

The HSE provides operation guidance on TW including examples  and can be found at the following link https://www.hse.gov.uk/f...ims/constrct/2_10_04.htm

As Pirellipete mentions you could contact a structural engineer to clarify further or someone like a temporary works coordinator who has been trained to manage TW on site.

I hope that helps.