The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has highlighted recently that plans to dilute health and safety regulations could leave Britain’s dock workers with no specialist safety protection.

Proposals put forward by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) if implemented will put an end to safety rules specific to dockyards and could have devastating consequences for dock workers.

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers president Karl Tonks stated that “Five times more dock workers die than the national average for workplace deaths so the last thing the port industry needs is weaker safety measures”. This worrying statistic highlights how important the safety rules specific to dockyards are.

The plan put forward by the HSE is to scrap regulations specific to dockyards and replace the regulations with guidance. The regulations highlighted by APIL that could be scrapped are those for example that ensure ladders are in place as a means of escape if a worker falls into the water. The scrapped regulations would be replaced with guidance however, guidance is not compulsory. As Karl Tonks stated recently “an industry as dangerous as this needs robust rules to protect its workers” 

APIL and most personal injury lawyers are all too aware of the importance of specific regulations for dockyards. Personal injury lawyers see the devastating consequences that occur when avoidable accidents happen on the individual and their families and loved ones.  Regulations specific to docks are in place to protect employees from specific risks within the dockyards and must be protected.