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Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 1994

Legislation

These regulations were revoked on 6th April 2007 by the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007, which were subsequently revoked on 6th April 2015 by the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015

Introduction

These regulations were the result of an EU Directive 92/57/EEC (OJ L245, 26.8.92) which was the so called 'Construction Sites Directive'. This was in itself the result of a Europe wide study of fatal accidents in the construction industry which found that whilst 37% of such accidents were due to failures on the part of construction site management and workers, 28% were attributable to poor planning and 35% to unsafe design. The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 1994 are the auks interpretation of the directive. Its declared intent is that everyone involved with a construction project must be committed to the task of reducing accidents and incidents of work related ill health.

The regulations place specific duties on clients, designers and contractors, to rethink their approach to health and safety, so that it is taken into account throughout the life of a construction project from its inception to its subsequent final demolition and removal.

Not all projects qualify under the regulations and therefore it is necessary decide whether the project qualifies before proceeding.

Duty Holders

Persons with specific duties under the regulations are the Client, the Designer, the Principal Contractor, Other Contractors, and a new duty holder introduced by the regulations; 'The Planning Supervisor'.

Each of these duty holders apart from the client must be 'Competent' to act in the project. Details of the duties of each of the principals and the issues to be decided about competence follow.

The Statutory Documents

The regulations provide for the production of the following documents and plans during the course of the project.

See Also