Making Your Site Safe - Requirements

Clients in the building trade should be reminded that the person responsible for the management of a building site is required, if the construction phase involves more than 30 calendar days or 500 person-days of work, to appoint a Construction Design and Management (CDM) coordinator, who must appoint a principal contractor for the project.

The CDM coordinator is responsible for the coordination of health and safety measures during the construction and for the maintenance of the health and safety file. The principal contractor must plan, manage and monitor the construction to ensure that it does not pose risks to the health and safety of workers and visitors to the site, to provide training and control site access.

Any failure to adhere to the requirements, which leads to an injury, will normally leave the principal contractor in the line of fire as regards any resulting claim, so it is important that the requirements are understood and enforced to the fullest possible extent.