What are the regulations?

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 came in to force on the 6th April 2015. They are a set of regulations aimed at improving management and health and safety on a construction site. The legislation defines a construction site as any place where construction work takes place. The definition of construction work is the "construction, alteration, conversion, [...], demolition or dismantling of a structure". The installation of fencing falls within the scope of this.

Roles and Responsibilities

As fencing is covered by the CDM regs., it places specific legal duties on certain key postions such as the client and the contractor, etc. The welfare of those working is normally the responsibility of the client but in smaller domestic works that responsibility defaults to the contractor.

Required documentation

The CDM regs. are also very specific about the requirement for two documents; the health and safety file and a construction phase plan. These can be very complex documents and cost several thousand pounds to put together. Fortunately though the regulations call for the documents to be proportionate and appropriate for the works. It would be wrong of me to tell you how a judge might interpret the legislation but I believe that charging several thousand for risk assessments for a few hundred pound of domestic fencing work is not within the spirit of proportionate and appropriate. The majority of fencing work comes with the same risks on each job and I believe a generic construction phase plan and a pre-commencement site meeting are enough for smaller clients. The health and safety file is a record to be kept by the client for use in future works. As domestic work is usually the client's home and there is s a visible long term record of the works already (the fence!), we don't charge the client to provide a written record to remind them they have a fence in the garden.

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