Building sites need ‘more inspectors’

Press, 25 February 1987, Page 29

Building sites need ‘more inspectors’

PA Wellington A shortage of Labour Department safety inspectors was probably a factor in recent building-site accidents in Wellington, according to a senior inspector.

The region has been short of two inspectors for more than two years, said the department’s supervising construction safety in-

spector, Mr Robert Grimmer. A youth, aged 15, was killed on a building site in Wellington last week and another construction worker was injured. Mr Grimmer said the site of the accident was one the department had not inspected. He said he was concerned about the recent spate of industrial accidents in the region. The “Evening Post” reported that at least eight serious site accidents had occurred in Wellington since April last year, four of them causing death.

Mr Grimmer said the shortage of safety inspectors and the shortage of skilled labour on the sites were probably responsible for a number of the accidents.

“Building sites need to be inspected regularly because they change daily,” he said. “Big sites should be visited once a month at least. We are getting to them every two or three months.”

The department’s head office would not permit Wellington to hire more staff because of the downturn in the building Indus-

try, Mr Grimmer said. But the region seemed to have escaped the downturn.

“According to the Wellington City Council, about $2 billion worth of work is going on in the city," he said.

Even if the department was permitted to employ two more inspectors, more would still be needed to service the Wellington construction sites adequately. The Labour Department’s chief construction safety engineer, Mr Brian Arney, said the department had no plans to increase the number of safety inspectors in Wellington.

Mr Amey is satisfied the region’s five inspectors are sufficient to cope with the workload. But he said he would like to see inspectors visit more sites a day and perhaps spend less time at each site. The number of site accidents did not seem to have increased noticeably, he said. Department inspectors were not responsible for site safety, but performed a check-up roll on safety supervisors.