Safety’s no nuisance - it can be a life saver
Yet the accident figures prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these local builders are at the greatest risk of injury or death of any in the already dangerous construction sector. To these builders, factoring in a safer system of working such as edge protection around a roof or making sure that materials cannot fall from a scaffold onto anyone below is just an extra ‘unnecessary’ expense.
A bricklayer recently told me that he “… could lose a job for the sake of being £5 more expensive than the next guy”. I sympathise with this – I used to be on the tools. But how much would he lose if he broke his leg falling from his ladder or dropped a brick onto his customers’ head as she went out shopping…
Burying his head in the sand and saying – ‘it won’t happen to me’ is not the way to go.