An investigation into the effectiveness of the construction health and safety regulations in the United Kingdom: designers role

Construction safety legislations in the United Kingdom are underpinned by Health and Safety atWork Act (1974) and the Construction (Design andManagement) CDM regulations 1994. Due to the poor performance of the CDM 1994, new regulations CDM 2007 were introduced in April 2007. The issues with CDM 1994 were numerous and spread over all members of the project team, with the designer's role being heavily criticised for lacking guidance. This resulted in poor communication between members of the project team, particularly between contractors and designers, with a large amount of needless risk assessments. In this paper the authors review the construction safety issues in the UK and report the results of questionnaires designed to investigate whether the problems that arose from CDM 1994 have been solved by CDM 2007, with particular reference to the designer's role. The data collected showed that there has been improved cooperation and integration between project team members. Designers felt that CDM Regulations 2007 can be integrated into their work much easier than before, allowing it to become part of the overall design process rather than an afterthought. Training and knowledge sharing in construction safety is another area needing considerable attention.