• Welcome to The Farming Forum!

    As part of this update, we have made a change to the login and registration process. If you are experiences any problems, please email [email protected] with the details so we can resolve any issues.

I dont get it?

Ok so following the comments like we aren't the experts in health and safety here is what you have to do to stay on the right sited of the law.
If you have anyone doing design work for you they should be able to help keep you right.

This is advice from Strutt & Parker. Full advice note on this page.

How can farmers meet their responsibilities on multiple contractor or commercial projects?
For any work around the farm yard, the farmer needs to make sure that they have formally appointed a competent person to take responsibility for health and safety issues. This can be the contractor, if only one person is being used on a job, although it is important to confirm this in writing.

For jobs involving multiple contractors, the farmer needs to appoint what is known as a principal designer and a principal contractor. The principal designer is not a designer in the traditional sense of the word, but takes responsibility for planning, managing and monitoring health and safety issues in the pre-construction phase. They also liaise with the principal contractor working on the project during the construction phase. It is possible for the principal contractor on a project to also be the principal designer, although this is not advised for bigger projects.

What paperwork is involved?
For projects on the farm it is important that the farmer confirms in writing who they are appointing to take responsibility for health and safety issues on their behalf. For projects involving only one contractor this could be in the form of a simple letter which states that you are appointing them to carry out the work and by doing this you have met your responsibilities as the client.

For projects with more than one contractor, there will need to be written confirmation of who is the principal designer and who is the principal contractor. As part of the process, a health and safety file will also need to be created which records useful information to help manage risks, such as fragile roofs, the location of underground services and the nearest place to find medical assistance. It is important that the farmer provides as much useful information as possible to the principal designer or contractor to enable them to draw this file together.

On very big projects – which are classed as those expected to last 30 or more working days and which will have more than 20 workers simultaneously working at any point, or where the project will exceed 500 person days – the HSE must be notified.

So for small uncomplicated sheds its not hard, costly or time consuming to keep yourself right.

One thing to be careful of is the designer part of this, as it there responsibility to design the building in a safe way to allow it to be "constructed, used, maintained and demolished" in a safe manner. This does bring in the need for more detailed knowledge that a general farmer wouldn't have.

HSE advise note

David
Agri Design
 
I don't get it either. Here we have a thread in which farmers claim that saferty is too expensive, and yet we regularly get threads started about which new pick-up, car, 4 X 4, or tractor, and how best to buy it. Can any body explain? I run a 12 year old van, and yet safety is my top priority.
I can't join all the bits up but your last line sums it up my thoughts, people need to take responsibility for their own safety, you obviously do. Is it really right to lay the blame for those who have no respect for their own or their workers safety at their customers door?
 
lets be clear here....I did not name and shame anyone, or identify the farm,location or anyone involved...just posing a question that concerns me greatly.
With regards to comments about absorbing costs I'm afraid the days of fat margins in construction are long since gone(but replaced by expensive legislation!) and its not only farmers who have seen prices fall.....My post is about safety and the encouragement of safe practice...nothing else!

If folk think these practices are ok or want to justify their necessity on the basis of "we cant afford to do it properly" then the race to the bottom really has begun sadly.....we wont be joining in!
The race to the bottom has many paths. When I was last putting a shed up the guy doing it said one of his competitors had just gone bust leaving many suppliers who they shared in a mess yet the firm who went bust started up again within days under a very similar name. As he said to me at the time, he could make decent money out of the job if he didn't have to pay his bills yet this is what he was competing against.
 

Adam@Rumen

Member
Location
Nantwich/Rishton
I don't get it either. Here we have a thread in which farmers claim that saferty is too expensive, and yet we regularly get threads started about which new pick-up, car, 4 X 4, or tractor, and how best to buy it. Can any body explain? I run a 12 year old van, and yet safety is my top priority.

Here for a good time, not a long time ;)
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
I don't get it either. Here we have a thread in which farmers claim that saferty is too expensive, and yet we regularly get threads started about which new pick-up, car, 4 X 4, or tractor, and how best to buy it. Can any body explain? I run a 12 year old van, and yet safety is my top priority.
Some farmers are rolling in it on good inherited land with cash in the bank and a new range rover
Others have none of these things.
 
Some farmers are rolling in it on good inherited land with cash in the bank and a new range rover
Others have none of these things.
The only farmer I know who bought a new Range Rover last year also told me that at one point he was losing 25k a month milking.:scratchhead:

Perhaps I ought to add he has several business, one of them erecting buildings, perhaps that's where the money for the Range Rover comes from!
 
I dismantled a whole factory 25 yrs ago.
60,000 sq ft
Two manitous with potato box s tied on forks did the job fine
I know of a chap who was working out of a potato box on forks. The box fell off the forks with him in it and landed on him. He spent the rest of his life paralysed from the waist down with terrible brain damage. Cutting corners might be fine 99.9% of the time but every now and again it's going to go wrong.
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Well, times are only going to get tougher in the future, so 2 choices.....

(1) Follow all the rules, have all the latest up to date safety gear, charge more, and price yourselves out of the market.
(2) Do it on the cheap, charge competitive rates, and have lots of customers.

As I said before, not saying it's right, but that's the way it is.

There's way less RR owning farmers than folks would have us believe.
 

How is your SFI 24 application progressing?

  • havn't been invited to apply

    Votes: 29 36.3%
  • have been invited to apply

    Votes: 14 17.5%
  • applied but not yet accepted

    Votes: 29 36.3%
  • agreement up and running

    Votes: 8 10.0%

Webinar: Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer 2024 -26th Sept

  • 2,447
  • 50
On Thursday 26th September, we’re holding a webinar for farmers to go through the guidance, actions and detail for the expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer. This was planned for end of May, but had to be delayed due to the general election. We apologise about that.

Farming and Countryside Programme Director, Janet Hughes will be joined by policy leads working on SFI, and colleagues from the Rural Payment Agency and Catchment Sensitive Farming.

This webinar will be...
Back
Top