Poor building practices rife in London

Inspectors targeting small construction sites across London boroughs have been shocked by the level of poor practices uncovered in one of the UK’s most dangerous industries. Nearly one in four of 150 sites involving roof work, extensions to domestic properties and refurbishment were served with prohibition notices forcing them to stop work because of an immediate danger to worker safety.

Andrew Beal, principal inspector at the Health and Safety Executive said: “Finding such poor work practices that we had to issue prohibition notices on nearly one in four sites is unacceptable, especially when many of the incidents are completely avoidable by taking commonsense actions and precautions”.

The damning evidence emerges in the month in which the government has appointed Lord Young as “enterprise adviser” with a brief to reduce regulation for small and medium-sized businesses.