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Is it me, or is the construction industry's growing obsession with health and safety procedures in danger of obscuring the stated goal of making construction a healthier, safer industry?

It sounds paradoxical, I agree. After all, how can a preoccupation with safe working conditions do anything but improve safety? Well, quite simply if you take your eye off the ball you will miss the goal. And that, I believe, is beginning to happen more and more in the realm of health and safety regulation.

Regulations must be realistic. Unless they take into account day-to-day practicalities they run the risk of becoming irrelevant or, worse still, counter-productive. If you tie a workforce up in too much red tape, they will find a way of cutting through it; the law will be flouted and chaos will reign.

Getting real

So what do I mean by realistic regulation? I can best illustrate that by citing one or two regulations that I believe are not realistic. First let's take a look at the new Work at Height Regulations. Nobody denies that falls from height are the biggest killers in the workplace. It makes perfect sense to provide safeguards to prevent people falling from work platforms, floor slabs and scaffolds. But the regulations go much further. "A place is ‘at height' if a person could be injured falling from it, even if it is at or below ground level," says the new law. This is so loosely drafted that there is almost no limit to how it could be interpreted.

It is conceivable that, as I write this, I could fall from my chair and crack my head open on the corner of my desk. Is it possible? Yes. Is it realistic? Hardly. Is it likely? Of course not. Yet according to the Work at Height Regulations 2005 I'm working at height and, at the very least, somebody should carry out a full risk assessment.

Let's look now at The European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR). The law requires that the drivers who deliver flammable liquids (in LCH Generators' case - bulk diesel fuel tanks) must be fully ADR trained and certified.

The new Work at Height Regulations are so loosely drafted that there is almost no limit to how they could be interpreted

At about £600 per driver this training is not cheap and, with 40 drivers in LCH, this soon adds up to a significant investment. It's a price that we're happy to pay because it means we have a professional workforce who we can trust to work safely and deliver good customer service.

In addition to LCH drivers being fully competent under ADR, our delivery vehicles are fitted with all the appropriate safety equipment to make them ADR compliant. Again, this does not come cheap. But that's not enough for some authorities. For example, we now cannot send a vehicle carrying our specially designed, type approved and ADR compliant bulk fuel tanks through London's Blackwall Tunnel for fear of explosion or fuel spillage. Not even an empty tank can be taken through the tunnel. Yet, a diesel generator with integral fuel tank can pass through the tunnel without hindrance.

As a result of this regulation our vehicles must re-route via the Dartford Tunnel or Bridge. Even then, they must stop to await inspection and subsequent police escort to the other side. This has a huge impact on transport planning as well as severe cost implications. I wonder if this is all really necessary when we are already completely road-legal and conforming to stringent European-wide regulations.

Everyday issues

Okay, not every business is likely to come up against that particular frustration. But you don't have to look far to find everyday examples of overzealous health and safety regimes possibly doing more harm than good. Let me leave you with this true story.

A contractor recently donned a new high-vis jacket (having first put on other PPE including boots, gloves and hard hat). Fumbling with the jacket's elastic toggle, his gloved fingers slipped, the toggle sprang round…and caught him in the eye. The incident necessitated a trip to A&E followed by three days off work. But how was he to know that he should have put on his protective goggles before his jacket?