Spotlight........


The Work at Height Regulations

In 2003/2004 67 people died and nearly 4000 suffered a serious injury as a result of a fall from height in the workplace.
Falls from height are the most common cause of fatal injury.
The Work at Height Regulations 2005 came into effect on 6 April 2005. The Regulations will apply to all work at height where there is a risk of a fall liable to cause personal injury.

The Regulations place duties on employers, the self-employed, and any person that controls the work of others. The Regulations do not apply to the provision of paid instruction or leadership in caving or climbing by way of sport, recreation, team building or similar activities.
As part of the Regulations, duty holders must ensure:

  • all work at height is properly planned and organised;
  • those involved in work at height are competent;
  • the risks from work at height are assessed and appropriate work equipment is selected and used;
  • the risks from fragile surfaces are properly controlled; and
  • equipment for work at height is properly inspected and maintained.

The Regulations include schedules giving requirements for existing places of work and means of access for work at height.
The regulations provide a simple hierarchy for managing and selecting equipment for work at height, you must:

  • avoid work at height where you can;
  • use work equipment or other measures to prevent falls where you cannot avoid working at height; and
  • where you cannot eliminate the risk of a fall, use work equipment or other measures to minimise the distance and consequences of a fall should one occur.

For detailed information regarding these regulations click here

What do these regulations mean for the Scaffolding and Access industry?

While ladders are not banned, the Regulations require that they should be used ONLY when they are the sole reasonably practical means of access. When selecting ladders your risk assessment must demonstrate that their use is of short duration and that there is no alternative. This will be hard to justify for access scaffolds on the typical building site, especially where materials or tools have to be carried up and down, because ladder users should have both hands free.

How can ASP help?

The ideal means of access for any work at height is a purpose-made stair tower, but previously these have been time-consuming and thus costly to build in traditional scaffolding. System scaffold stairs are available, but they are made in fixed lift heights which make them unsuitable for traditional scaffolds. They require the use of the system to build the complete tower and relatively few scaffold companies have system kit in their inventories.

Now the ASP Universal Stair provides the complete solution to building stair towers in both traditional and system scaffold structures. A range of self-contained, pre-assembled aluminium stair units, flat packed, which automatically adjust to a wide range of lift heights, making them ideal for use in tube and fitting scaffolds.

Universal Stair

This product has applications away from scaffolding, wherever a simply deployed stair, which requires no skilled labour to erect, is required. Special hooks for use in formwork are available and Universal Stair will also find use by roofers and allied trades.

Universal Stair is a simple self-contained product which is easy to store packed flat and can be collected or delivered on small vehicles including vans for the smaller models. Product selection is easy, depending only on the range of lift heights required, and users have the assurance that all models, in all possible positions, are fully-compliant with regulations. Non-scaffolding users will find Universal Stair easy to use, since there are no special skills involved in producing a first-class result.

Get in touch

Telephone: 0870 609 3370


Fax: 0870 850 3307

Email: info@asp.gb.com

Advanced Scaffold Products Limited. Telephone 0870-609-3370, Fax 0870-850-3307