Comment
NSC 5
May 20
Slow return to ‘normal’ begins
A phased return towards the full level of working on construction sites in England, Wales and Northern
Ireland was underway as we went to press, and an industry’s workforce was about to learn for the first time
how to cope with safe working requirements forced on them by a pandemic. Scottish sites and those in
Ireland of course remained closed by government order unless they were engaged on ‘essential’ projects.
Social distancing is the key strategy, although there will be others such as providing face masks and
having hand sanitisers available at key locations. Social distancing on scaffolding will be a challenge as the
boards are nowhere near wide enough to allow a two metres distance to be maintained. To help ensure
that new safe working guidelines are adhered to a new category of site supervision is being introduced, the
COVID-19 Supervisor.
The challenges for the steel construction sector have had to be met in factories and design and
administration offices as well as on sites. Office based staff have mostly been working from home and, like
the rest of the world it seems, have been using services like Teams for meetings.
It is easier to introduce new working methods like safe distancing in the factory-controlled conditions of
workshops, which is where most steel construction takes place, than on congested construction sites. Very
few steelwork contractors have closed their workshops although most have furloughed some employees,
and there has since been a steady return to work as the lockdown continues.
In the workshops, one-way systems have been introduced to make maintaining safe distances easier.
Toolbox talks have been adopted to help make sure the new hygiene and other measures like cleaning
handles and controls that will be shared by other users are understood by everyone.
The government is reportedly considering staggered start and finish work times as part of its back to work
plans, and the steel construction sector can already report considerable success with the introduction of
these sorts of measures over the past few weeks. Staggered break times have also been introduced and extra
welfare facilities put in place to avoid overcrowding canteens.
On site, steel construction’s offsite fabrication advantages obviously come to the fore. Main contractors
have introduced their own measures, which BCSA members fully support. Some have adopted the BCSA
Safe Site Handover Certificate processes, which were revised by BCSA for COVID-19, as one way to help
promote safe working. Much of a steelwork contractor’s on-site work is carried out from mobile elevated
working platforms, so social distancing is seldom an issue. Most workers in steel construction work locally
in workshops, but erectors have to travel and finding accommodation for them has been a challenge due to
hotels and B&B’s being closed.
Few projects seem to have been cancelled, but many have been delayed. Encouragingly, there has been a
steady flow of enquiries and tenders are being prepared. Some BCSA members have even won new work in
the past few weeks. All obviously yearn for a return to ‘normal’, or to see what the ‘new normal’ will look like.
As NSC went to press construction looked like being among the first industries, along with manufacturing,
to be told to return to work, safely. From the experience of BCSA members so far, it looks like it can be done.
Nick Barrett - Editor
BARRETT
STEEL LIMITED
Headline sponsors:
Gold sponsors: Ficep UK Ltd | National Tube Stockholders and Cleveland Steel & Tubes |
Peddinghaus Corporation | voestalpine Metsec plc | Wedge Group Galvanizing Ltd
Silver sponsors: Jack Tighe Ltd | Kaltenbach Limited | Tata Steel | Trimble Solutions (UK) Ltd
Bronze sponsors: AJN Steelstock Ltd | Barnshaw Section Benders Limited | Hempel | Joseph Ash Galvanizing |
Jotun Paints | Sherwin-Williams | Tension Control Bolts Ltd | Voortman Steel Machinery
For further information about steel construction and Steel for Life please visit
www.steelconstruction.info or www.steelforlife.org
Steel for Life is a wholly owned subsidiary of BCSA
/www.steelconstruction.info
/
/www.steelconstruction.info
/
/
/
/
/
/
/www.kaltenbach.co.uk
/
/uk
/
/home.html
/
/
/
/www.steelconstruction.info
/www.steelforlife.org