GMB reveals the riskiest areas to work in Britain

Birmingham is the most dangerous place in Britain to work, according to research into industrial accidents by the GMB general union.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) was informed of 3,325 industrial accidents in the city during 2003-04, of which four were fatal industrial accidents and 612 were major industrial accidents.

Following closely behind were Leeds, Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield, Westminster, Bradford, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Bristol, Nottingham City, Wakefield, Hull, Kirklees and Cardiff. Each of these reported more than 200 major industrial accidents over the same period.

The GMB analysed data for 408 areas of Britain, taken from the HSE's Statistics of occupational safety, ill health and enforcement action 2003/2004. It found that Scotland and the South East of England were the riskiest regions to work in.

In total, there were more than 170,000 industrial accidents across the country in 2003-04. Over 31,000 (19%) of these were major accidents such as fractures, amputations and dislocations, and 318 were fatal.

"Almost one in five incidents was a major industrial accident," commented GMB national health and safety officer John McClean on the research. "This shows the continuing extent of people being maimed and killed by industrial accidents, in spite of legislation that puts a duty on employers to conduct risk assessments of the hazards faced by their workers and take steps to eliminate them. These figures show that the corners have been cut and that there is inadequate enforcement."

The findings demonstrate that workers should join a union for their own safety, McClean added.