Why Better Tunnel Safety Is Being Targeted by the HSE

When excavating material from tunnels or other sites such as quarries, having conveyor belts that stay in working order is essential to keep things moving. However, it is also a critical matter of safety.

Conveyor belt repair work will not just ensure that your conveyor keeps working; it will also help prevent the kind of incident that could cause serious injury and lead to an investigation and potential prosecution by a body such as the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Among the kinds of accidents and hazards that can occur involving conveyors are:

·       Entanglement of hair, clothing or equipment, pulling a worker into a conveyor

·       Material falling from a belt that may hit people below

·       Slips, trips and falls caused by material falling on walkways

·       Electrical faults, leading to electrocution incidents

·       Fire hazards, including those caused by overheated motors

·       Excessive noise

When Can Faulty Conveyors Cause Danger To Workers?

Not all of these are caused by a possible fault with a conveyor that needs fixing, but some are, such as overheating motors or electrical faults, while damage to a belt may make it more likely to spill material with dangerous consequences.

Many of these hazards will pose a greater peril in a tunnel, as the enclosed space creates greater vulnerability to fire and increases the risk of coming into contact with spilt material.

The dangers of machinery with moving parts like conveyor belts are already comprehensively covered by health and safety law, not least the primary provision of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 that requires employers to ensure workplace safety wherever possible.

However, tunnels may now be subject to extra scrutiny under proposed amendments to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR).

What Will The New RIDDOR Regulations Involve?

The HSE has launched a consultation on the plans, which would include an increased focus on particular areas, one of which is tunnelling, with the new benchmark being for any incidents in tunnels measuring more than 1.2 metres in diameter to be reportable.

Any tunnel large enough to contain a conveyor belt is likely to be much larger than this, of course, but it does indicate that there will be a stronger focus on accident reporting and, by extension, safety standards, in tunnels.

Other reporting areas set to come under extra scrutiny include:

·       Falling objects likely to endanger life, which will now extend beyond lifting operations

·       Structural failures such as the collapse of roofs, ceilings and trenches

·       Plant safety, such as drills or excavators being overturned

·       More occupational diseases will be reportable, including decompression from tunnelling and hearing damage

Speaking about the proposed update to RIDDOR, HSE deputy director of regulation Rachel Radway said: “RIDDOR reporting is central to how we identify emerging risk, target regulatory activity and contribute to the evidence base for workplace health and safety.”

She added: “The consultation is relevant across all sectors and industries. Duty holders, self-employed workers and those in control of work premises are particularly encouraged to respond.”

The new RIDDOR focus is a clear attempt to ensure that the potential danger of working in the relatively closed environment of tunnels is recognised, both in accident reporting and the health and safety scrutiny that goes with it.

How Has Tunnel Safety Improved?

Of course, in days gone by, the risks of working in tunnels were greater. Mine collapses were an obvious hazard, alongside the various risks from poison gas and dust inhalation, although the most notorious underground disasters mostly involved explosions.

Although coal mining in Britain is now a thing of the past and most tunnelling is now carried out by boring machines or sub-surface cut-and-cover work, there are still safety issues to be dealt with.

However, times have changed dramatically since the days when navvies would take on dangerous work to dig the early London Underground tunnels, often with fatal results, and the modern era, where the most recent HS2 tunnel incident under London saw no injuries.

Even that incident, which occurred in September last year and involved a near-miss between a gantry beam and a cherry picker, saw work suspended while a site safety review was carried out, whereas fatalities would have been seen as a fact of life for Victorian navvies.

In the context of higher modern-day safety standards, it is clear that making sure your conveyor belts are safe and kept in good repair is an important part of ensuring worker safety.

Now that proposals have been published for an increased focus on tunnel safety, it will be even more important to keep them in excellent working order underground.