22.07.2009

The right machine for the job?

We reported earlier this month that a JCB telehandler was being used to hoist participants up onto the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in London. Over the 100 day period 2,400 people will be lifted onto and then off of the structure – over 4,800 lifts
Click here to read original report

Please register to see all images

The telehandler will be used to lift those selected onto the fourth plinth

As soon as we published the report we began to receive emails and letters, the first and the most succinct of which are published below.

The fact is that people have correctly flagged numerous safety violations with the lifting method being used, including - that:-

- This is not the most suitable product for the job

- A non integrated telehandler platform should only be used for short or urgent unplanned work. Making 4,800 lifts over a 100 day period for an event which was over a year in the planning hardly fits either criteria.

- The lift is actually performing the role of a personnel hoist which carries a host of additional safety requirements.

Will the HSE be paying the site a visit and recommending more suitable access methods?

Here are the two letters referred to above, between them the cover most of the other points:

The first:

Dear Sir,

Reference the article with the JCB telehandler, after conducting a dual category IPAF training course today and checking the Vertikal site for current news, I need some answers to this article.

Can someone please tell me that the lifting operation as been risk assessed and properly planned? I doubt it very much but please correct me if I'm wrong.

All credit to JCB for getting the coverage, but come on, the lifting regs tell us to use the most suitable piece of equipment to carry out a planned lift, while lifting personnel. Is this telehandler the right piece of equipment for the job?

The public seem to be wandering around everywhere, i don't see any barriers separating them, indicating no control measures.

The ground control personnel have not got sufficient PPE they are not wearing hard hats and I'm guessing they have no safety foot wear. I can not make out if any body in the platform is wearing a safety harness, enlighten me please.

And finally I thought that forklift trucks and telehandlers should be static when lifting personnel and travelling with a platform basket is forbidden?

I take it the JCB is new and would therefore comply with the six months Loler certificate, as opposed to a 12 months inspection certificate now put me right!!!!!!

Yours
Graham Garrick
UK Power Booms

The most succinct – to date:

Sir,

Like many others I was impressed by the innovative use of the ‘empty’ plinth at Trafalgar Square. However the use of a wholly inappropriate machine to provide access is inexplicable.

Those of us who live in the world of vertical access know only too well the vast and ever increasing raft of regulations and codes of practices that have to be adhered to on a day-to-day basis under continuous threat of prosecution. This Health & Safety environment however is one to be both cherished for its objectives and respected for its potential effect on businesses and livelihoods.

It is a mystery therefore that members of the public let alone workers are permitted to be transported from one level to another completely contradictory to all approved use of aerial platforms whether or not installed on a telehandler. That a projected 2400 are to be carried in such a way - nearly 5000 cycles beggars belief. The other breaches of PPE requirements as well as conventional H&S provisions just compound the wholly amateur approach which has patently been approved in some way.

This can only be explained by the fact that a conventional passenger hoist or transport platform or mobile stairway would affect the overall artistic impact of the event and that just would not do.

In despair

Chris Hardy
Scanclimber (UK)

Vertikal Comment

When we received the first we pointed out that a thorough risk assessment could have alleviated many of the objections, including the fact that hardhats are not required as the risk of falling objects is minimal to non existent.

However the fact is that this is not the best machine for the job, in fact it would come well down a list of the most suitable products, including a rolling staircase, a big scissor lift, a fully integrated telehandler platform and a regular boom lift.

We would be interested to hear more of your views on this subject.