Page 16 - Gi flipbook - November 2018

DIGGING UP

BRITAIN

Unintentionally striking a pipeline can cause life-changing whether it is for fencing, piling, or
injuries to contractors, therefore the industry has a duty housebuilding, or industrial work,
of care to better protect those working on the frontline, there is a real chance an asset may
as well as the general public. Richard Broome, Managing be hit. Regardless of the asset type,
severe disruption, costly repairs and
Director at LinesearchbeforeUdig, shares what more can reputational damage will follow, and
be done to keep the industry safe, drawing on data from for the workers on site, there is the
its recent study into the excavation work currently taking risk of injury and loss of life.
place in Great Britain STRIKE FREQUENCY
While it is fair to assume that
he number of excavations infrastructure at constant risk of millions of potential underground
taking place across Great being accidentally damaged, but also strikes are avoided thanks to the
Britain is widely put construction workers’ lives at risk. intelligence provided by
acknowledged by the In GB, there is more than 1.5 million LinesearchbeforeUdig’s (LSBUD)
T industry to be more than kilometres of underground asset search facility, not all work
four million each year. In 2017, only infrastructure already in situ. With sites are searched in this way. It is a
2.25 million of these received a the majority of digging work being sad fact that there are entirely
thorough search for pipes and cables carried out by contractors, normally preventable strikes happening each
before the work commenced. This on behalf of utility companies, it is year, meaning we are seeing
means that 44 per cent of all the easy to see why those involved are avoidable injuries and fatalities, all
excavation that took place last year at a heightened risk of striking pipes because the decision makers have
did so without detailed examination or other buried assets. not spared the time to do a search
for existing underground assets. This So, every time a spade or digger before the digging begins.
not only put GB’s critical utility bucket hits the ground, no matter Our report gauged the scale of

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