Industry News HubPaul Woodhams is managing director (regeneration) at McLaren Construction The Building Safety Act has been a defining issue for our sector in this decade. Building safe buildings and remediating existing ones to the mandated standards has resulted in changes to how the industry as a…
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Redeveloping an occupied skyscraper is no easy task. But Bam is making the complex Broadgate Tower job look easy
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Metcalfe Fencing Contractors Ltd has been fined £22,000 after an employee sustained severe spinal fractures following a fall from a ladder. The incident occurred on 10 December 2024, at a site in North Tyneside, where the 23-year-old worker was erecting an acoustic fence. The company was also ordered to pay £5,327 in costs at South Tyneside Magistrates Court on 29 September 2026.
The injury to the young worker came about during the installation of a four-metre-tall, 265-metre-long section of acoustic fencing. This work was being carried out between the busy A19 near Holystone and a residential housing estate. The operational plan necessitated the use of a ladder positioned on uneven, muddy ground, a method that inherently presented significant risks.
Further compounding the hazards, an excavator was deployed to lift the large fence panels. The procedure involved lifting these panels over the head of the operator on the ladder.
During this phase of the operation, the slings attached to the excavator became entangled with the ladder. This entanglement caused the ladder to tip unexpectedly, resulting in the employee falling approximately two metres to the ground below. The fall led directly to the worker suffering debilitating spinal fractures, highlighting the severe consequences of inadequate safety protocols.
An investigation conducted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) meticulously uncovered multiple failings on the part of Metcalfe Fencing Contractors Limited. The investigation concluded that the company had failed to adequately plan both the lifting operation and the associated work at height activities. These failures were identified as direct breaches of fundamental health and safety regulations, which mandate employers to ensure the safety and well-being of their workforce.
Falls from height consistently remain one of the foremost causes of serious injury and fatalities in workplaces across Great Britain. HSE guidance explicitly states that all employers bear the responsibility for ensuring that any lifting operations and work at height activities are not only properly planned but also executed in a manner that is, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe. This includes a critical assessment of whether work at height can be entirely eliminated, or if not, how the risks can be rigorously controlled and mitigated.
Metcalfe Fencing Contractors Ltd, based in The Annexe Heatherlands, Grantley, Ripon, subsequently pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. This section places a general duty on employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all their employees. The court’s decision to impose a substantial fine of £22,000, alongside significant costs, underscores the gravity of the company’s safety omissions.
HSE inspector Matthew Dundas commented on the incident, emphasising the preventable nature of such accidents. He stated, “Every year, a significant proportion of accidents, many of them serious and sometimes fatal, occur as a result of poorly planned lifting operations or work at height activities.” Inspector Dundas further elaborated, “This particular incident was wholly avoidable. Had the company used reasonable practicable measures such as remote release clamps on the lifting equipment, and tag-lines to avoid the need to work on a ladder, this injury would not have occurred.” His remarks highlight the availability of straightforward, effective safety measures that, if implemented, could have prevented the worker’s
life-altering injuries. This case serves as a reminder to all employers of their legal and moral obligations to protect their employees from foreseeable risks.
This story was originally published by HSE Media Centre
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Aureos has won a contract worth up to £190m to remove eight boilers from the former Dungeness A nuclear power station in Kent. Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS), a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, appointed the contractor following a competitive procurement process. The contract covers…
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Existing rules already protect many leaseholders from footing the bill for fixing historic building safety defects, but some people still fall through the gaps because the law doesn’t cover different forms of ownership, leaving them at risk of paying for problems they didn’t cause.
Now, the government will go further to narrow these gaps and provide more financial support to leaseholders.
Building safety minister Baroness Blake said: “We are going further to protect more homeowners from unfair costs and make construction product manufacturers contribute towards putting things right.
“Alongside new powers to force those responsible to fix unsafe buildings, these measures will help give residents the safety and security they deserve.”
These new proposals were unveiled in Parliament during the second reading of the Remediation of Unsafe Cladding Bill, a drive to get unsafe buildings fixed faster and ensure those responsible face tougher consequences if they fail to act.
Construction product manufacturers linked to historic unsafe cladding and insulation products will also be required to contribute more to putting affected buildings right.
The Bill will speed up action by placing a legal duty on those responsible to fix building safety defects, with those failing to act facing criminal penalties and fines of up to £500,000. It will also let authorities step in and get work done when those responsible repeatedly refuse.
For the first time, the government will have the powers it needs to recover contributions from manufacturers at scale.
The new measures will intend to help:
Under current rules, whether someone is protected from some building safety bills can depend on the circumstances of the person who owned the flat on 14 February 2022. This means someone can buy a flat later as their only or main home and still miss out, because a previous owner was ineligible.
The government is exploring ways to narrow this gap and help more leaseholders feel confident in their home’s safety.
Because there is no separate freeholder, residents are not covered by the Building Safety Act‘s leaseholder protections, putting them at risk of paying a lot. New government funding will help fund remediation of internal, high-risk, high-cost fire-safety defects.
At the moment, protections generally cover people who owned no more than three properties on 14 February 2022.
The government plans to raise this limit to six, so more people who owned four to six properties and did not qualify on this date will be protected from having these costs passed on to them. This will support individuals at risk of high bills through no fault of their own and, in many cases, who need to make their properties safe for the people who live in them.
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Renew Holdings has acquired the parent company of power drilling contractor PBU in a deal worth up to £50m. The AIM-listed engineering services group said it has bought Porter Brothers Holdings through its wholly owned subsidiary Excalon Holdings. Renew paid an initial £31.1m in cash,…
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Construction businesses classed as being in “significant” financial distress rose to 108,340 in Q3 2026, up 6.7 per cent on Q2, according to the latest report from business recovery specialists BTG. The figure appeared in yesterday’s quarterly Red Flag Report. It was 4.6 per cent…
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The one-day event brings together professionals from across the construction industry to explore new technology, exchange ideas and discover practical ways to overcome challenges and improve how businesses operate.
Following a successful event last year, Xperience is looking forward to returning to Digital Construction North and building on the conversations with construction businesses exploring new ways of working.
This year, Xperience will be talking about:
Connecting project, operational, service, and financial information into one joined-up view, removing reliance on disconnected systems, spreadsheets, and duplicated data entry.
How construction businesses can use AI and automation in a practical, sensible way to improve productivity, streamline processes, reduce admin, and support faster, more informed decision-making.
The common challenges we’re seeing across the industry – and what leading businesses are doing differently to improve efficiency, collaboration, and visibility.
The Xperience team will be on hand to discuss the challenges facing construction businesses, share ideas and demonstrate how its industry-specific solutions can help improve efficiency and connect business operations.
Visitors to Stand B5 can learn more about:
Contracts365 – An ERP solution designed specifically for the construction industry, bringing essential construction functionality together in one integrated system. Visitors can also explore how Microsoft Copilot makes business data easier to access and use.
Service365 – An end-to-end service management solution helping organisations manage service delivery more effectively.
Alongside exhibiting, Xperience will also be presenting on the Tech Stage on 18 November, exploring smarter construction with Microsoft Copilot and Business Central.
The session will highlight how these technologies can support construction businesses and provide practical examples of their applications.
Whether you’re exploring new technology, looking to improve existing processes or simply interested in what Xperience has to offer, visit the team at Stand B5 on 18 November at Manchester Central.
It’s an opportunity to meet the team, see the solutions in action and discuss how connected systems and AI-powered tools can support your business. Attendance at Digital Construction North is free. Register to attend here: Digital Construction North 2026
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In a competitive sector like construction, fear of missing out could too easily drive your business strategy, with new AI platforms claiming to prevent it launching almost every week. A recent piece in this publication argued that AI is already reshaping how buyers build their supplier shortlists, and that’s worth noting. Understandably, contractors might wonder whether it’s worth investing. For most sole traders and small firms, the honest answer is probably not.
It’s a fair question. Many of us now use AI platforms to answer queries, search for products and services and get advice. With so much talk about AI’s influence on buying habits, holding back on your own AI investment can feel risky.
For large contractors with IT and marketing functions operating multiple teams across regions, a dedicated AI platform and time spent optimising online content for AI search could pay off. But for small firms and sole traders, the picture is very different.
Size matters in this conversation because the UK construction industry is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): RICS notes that construction has more SMEs than any other UK sector, with 870,000 companies operating in it. Moreover, under the Procurement Act 2023, buyers are encouraged to work with SMEs as part of their social value proposition.
However, for sole traders or subcontractors with only a few employees, complex AI strategies that take time, resources and a chunk of the budget are likely to cost more than they deliver.
Being found by a buyer who uses AI in the search process doesn’t mean you have to be adept at AI yourself. When a main contractor or public body runs an initial supplier search, the results usually come from an established platform, database, or approved supplier list. If you are listed there with up-to-date details and accreditations, the platform does the matching for you. That’s why keeping your prequalification current on an established industry platform wins more work than new software. Platforms with a dedicated SME filter add extra value, because buyers who must consider SME access and social value under the Procurement Act may want to search specifically for SMEs.
Our Construction Marketplace Health Index found that over a third of subcontractors (34%) find getting noticed by the right contractors their biggest challenge. When we asked how they win work today, 54% said it’s through good relationships and word of mouth. To me, this points to visibility as the hurdle, but once a buyer knows you’re there, reputation and trust take over, as they always have.
A tradesperson finishing a job at 6pm doesn’t want to open a dashboard full of predictive analytics features, with a stack of updates to go through. They want to log in, see who is looking for their services, and reply to an enquiry from their mobile phone. That doesn’t mean leaving AI out. Good platforms will already have it built in where it genuinely helps, such as matching contractors to relevant opportunities, sorting enquiries or pulling up information about a prospect. Contractors get the benefit without having to manage any of it themselves.
A straightforward matching platform, for an affordable, predictable monthly fee, is often all a sole trader or newly established contractor needs. It’s enough to get in front of the right people and show you are credible, reliable and available for work.
Virtus Scaffolding, a commercial scaffolding contractor based in Birmingham, had two decades of expertise and the capacity to scale, but struggled to secure a steady stream of relevant leads. This meant the team spent valuable time chasing dead ends rather than winning and completing work.
To expand its client pool, the company joined Marketplace on the Once For All platform. Through Marketplace, Virtus Scaffolding can view public tenders and exclusive private opportunities locally and across the UK, from a single dashboard. They also receive smart alerts for projects that match their criteria, and can demonstrate compliance and keep their certifications up to date. The results? £40K of new business in just four weeks.
Virtus Scaffolding’s story shows what’s possible when expert, compliant businesses find the right platform, helping them become visible where buyers already search.
AI plays an important role in construction, and that role will only grow. But small firms should be wary of buying technology just for fear of missing out. For most, the smartest way to benefit from AI is through a platform that already has it built in.
The test for any new tool is straightforward. Will it help me win more work without taking time away from the work itself? If the answer is no, or not yet, you may have better options. Being visible to the right buyers doesn’t need to be complicated. Like anything in construction, it just needs the right tool for the job.
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By Jon Zibell, VP of Global Alliances & Marketing, SciSure
Earlier in my career, I was doing consulting work inside research labs. Before I looked at a single report or requested data, I asked the people in the lab a simple question: do you feel safe here?
The answers can be startling. Some people say, “Of course, we’ve got a great team. They invest in us and care about our safety.” Others pause and say, “Most of the time.”
I bring this up because the most common way laboratories measure safety can also be the weakest. Zero incidents this quarter. Zero recordables this year. It is an easy number to report and an easy one to celebrate. But an incident log can mean your controls are working – or it can mean it wasn’t reported. From the outside, those two labs look the same.
In a survey of about 2,400 scientists commissioned by UCLA’s Center for Laboratory Safety, 86% said they believed their labs were safe places to work. Just under half had been injured at some point. More than a quarter of junior researchers said they’d had an injury they never reported to a supervisor.
So, if “zero incidents” is not the measure, what is? In my experience, below are a few components of a good lab safety program; one that’s likely to be clear on whether it’s working:
Hazard-based training tailored to the actual work,
Automated reporting that gives real-time and actionable insights,
An EHS team that researchers see as partners.
All three can be measured, but most labs are not measuring them yet.
Years ago, I sat in a presentation from an organization that had recently lost a researcher in a fatal lab incident. The slides that followed were all about progress. “We used to deliver 100 training courses per year. Now we deliver 250.” More flame-resistant lab coats. More PPE (personal protective equipment) on the shelves.
I sat there the whole time with one question in my head: What is the denominator? If you went from 100 training courses to 250, is that good? Should the number be 500? 2,000? Are we celebrating progress, or a slightly smaller shortfall?
Afterwards, I caught the speaker in the hallway. I told him I liked the progress and asked what the targets were. How much training should have been delivered? How many people should have been wearing flame-resistant coats? He looked at me and said, “I don’t think we know that. We’re just driving the number up the best we can.”
That conversation has stayed with me ever since. You cannot work toward a number if you do not know what it should be.
“We delivered more training” is one of the things I hear often from EHS teams, and it’s a slippery metric. A count tells you about effort and improvement. It says nothing about coverage. The useful version is a ratio: training completed against training required, people protected against people exposed.
And the denominator moves: a new chemical arrives, a protocol changes, new equipment goes in, or a process scientist starts splitting time between the development lab and pilot plant. Each of those changes what “fully trained” means. If you set your targets once a year, you’re measuring against a goal that no longer exists.
Good safety training is targeted and tailored at every level. Someone in a physical plant needs different training from someone in an office, even if they both sit through the same IT security course. But it gets really complicated inside the lab.
Most lab training is assigned through HR filters and a standard Learning Management System (LMS). Your job title says you work in a lab, so you get the standard lab training list. Anything specific to your lab gets sorted out locally by someone in your department, if it gets sorted out at all.
Your job title doesn’t know what you’re exposed to. To train someone properly, you need to know:
Which hazards are in the spaces they work in, from chemicals and biological agents to the equipment itself
What the people around them are working with, since exposure doesn’t stop at your own bench
Every space they move between, because someone who works in three labs needs to be trained for all three
What PPE they need, based on the highest level of risk they’ll face
Training has three jobs here: prevent the incident, prepare people to respond if it happens anyway, and make sure they have the protection to limit the damage if all else fails.
The response part is the one that slips. Safety Partners, an EHS consultancy that publishes an annual collection of real laboratory incidents, described a case in its ninth edition where a colleague at a nanotechnology core facility lost consciousness and the people around them didn’t follow the medical emergency procedures they’d been trained in. In their words, employers in that edition learned that “just doing an initial training is inadequate.”
So, the measure I’d watch is coverage: how many people are trained for the hazards they’re exposed to today, and how quickly that gap closes when something in the lab changes. The course count won’t tell you either.
The second place safety programs break down is reporting. Incidents, near misses, inspection findings: all of it depends on someone taking the time to log it and someone else taking the time to act on it. Every extra step in between is another reason it does not happen.
Inspections are a good example. When we start working with a new team, we ask them to walk us through everything from the moment they decide to inspect a lab to the moment the last finding is closed. It’s rarely simple. An email goes out to schedule it. The inspector takes notes in an app on a phone or tablet. Those notes become a PDF, and the PDF goes back out by email. Then the reminders start. “Can you close out these findings?” “Any update on what we found last month?”
That back and forth frustrates everyone. Lab Operations wants the labs running smoothly. Scientists want to get back to their work. EHS wants the findings resolved, compliance achieved, and risk mitigated. Meanwhile, the findings sit there for days, weeks, and sometimes months.
I think of it as a lit wick. The moment a hazard is identified, the wick is burning, and every day it stays open, you’re carrying that risk. The goal is to put it out fast, document that you did, and move on with a clear compliance trail of resolved findings.
That gives you a simple measure. Start a stopwatch when an inspection is scheduled and stop it when every finding is verified as resolved and the report is closed out. If you can’t say with confidence how long that takes, end to end, something in the process isn’t working. A finding that’s closed on paper but never checked hasn’t really been closed.
Incident reporting follows the same logic. The tenth edition of Safety Partners’ incident collection asks investigators to “look beyond what may seem like an immediate and obvious cause, such as not following a procedure.” Was there time pressure? Was the training adequate? Those questions only get asked if the report exists.
That’s why I treat slow, clumsy reporting as a safety risk in its own right. Think back to those junior researchers with injuries they never reported. Some of that is culture, which I’ll come to next. But a lot of it, I’d bet, is effort. If logging a near miss means finding the right form, filling it in, and emailing it to someone who may not reply in a timely manner, plenty of people will decide it isn’t worth it.
One of the first things I ask when I visit a customer, prospect or partner is whether their EHS team sees itself as a service provider and a collaborator, or whether it operates more like the inspector. A lot of teams tell me they’d love to be more of a partner, but they’re so busy chasing issues that they end up policing.
Say inspection data shows that someone keeps getting flagged for not wearing a lab coat. The policing response is a note: you’re in the red, do better. The collaborative response is a question: “I noticed this came up again. Why aren’t you wearing the proper lab coat?”
The answer is often something you’d never see in the data. “I didn’t know I needed a specific one for this work.” Or, “We don’t have any in this lab.” Every one of those is fixable. None of them get fixed by a reprimand.
That’s the kind of conversation labs want with health and safety, and it’s the kind that builds a strong culture and trust. Use the data to start a discussion. If it only ever produces a list of violations, people learn to keep their heads down, and what you get is check-the-box compliance. You need to be compliant. But compliance on its own won’t build a safety culture that drives down risk.
In fact, I’d go even further to say that building that culture is the responsibility of EHS and compliance teams.
Most of the organizations we work with exist to improve people’s lives. EHS has a real job to do, keeping labs safe, compliant and properly trained, with regulatory reports that are accurate and up to date. But the wider organization’s job is to get good, reproducible science to patients, quickly.
That’s why I believe health and safety, done well, speeds research up. A policing environment is a friction point. A good EHS team looks for places where science could move faster or more safely, and steps in with a fix that supports the researchers on both counts.
The best research organizations I’ve seen work the same way, with EHS, lab operations and research teams pulling toward the same finish line. That has consequences for measurement. Team metrics matter, because they show each group is doing their job. But they should add up to the organization’s business goals. If EHS is measured only on safety compliance scores and research only on output, you’ve built two teams that pull against each other.
Incident counts still belong on your dashboard. They just shouldn’t be alone there. Here’s what I’d add:
How people feel.
Ask researchers directly: do you feel safe here? Are you trained for the hazards around you? Do you have the PPE you need? Do you believe EHS takes your safety seriously? Are there any safety requirements that slow down science? Where are the friction points? Then ask why. Numbers can be bent to tell almost any story. People standing in the lab usually give you a straight answer – because they care.
Training coverage.
Completed against required, for the hazards each person faces right now. Track how long people have been overdue, as well as how many are delinquent.
Time to close.
From inspection scheduled to every finding resolved and verified.
Repeat findings.
The issues that keep coming up across a lab, a site or the whole organization: lab coats not worn, the wrong type of coat, biohazard bins overfilled. Watch whether each one is trending up or down and run an educational campaign on the highest risk findings.
Near-miss reports.
In my experience, more near-miss reports usually means people trust the system enough to use it. Read what they say, too.
Equipment readiness.
Is it calibrated, and is everyone using it trained on proper and safe use?
In a spreadsheet, spotting a pattern in repeat findings means stopping to analyze months of data. On a live dashboard that updates every time a finding is logged, you see the arrow pointing up or down straight away.
That’s what lets you walk into a lab and say, “This has happened a few times now. Is the biohazard bin in the wrong place?” You’re asking about the root cause instead of handing out a citation. And that’s the point where an EHS team stops reacting to problems and starts getting ahead of them. This is the foundation of building trust with your scientists.
Pick one lab this week. Ask the people in it whether they feel safe and ask why. Then go back to your own numbers and check each one for a denominator. If you report training delivered, find out how many were required. If you report inspections completed, find out how long the findings stayed open.
Those two exercises will tell you more about your program than a year of zero-incident reports.
In the end, it should be about keeping our scientists safe and productive, so they can improve the lives of patients who desperately need them. EHS teams play a major role in this. Embrace that role and help drive the science forward. The patients are counting on you.
Jon Zibell is Vice President of Global Alliances & Marketing at SciSure, where he leads strategic partnerships with organizations like The Engine (MIT), My Green Lab, and Safety Partners to help life science and research institutions modernize lab operations and compliance. He writes about the operational, safety, and technology challenges facing modern scientific organizations. Jon holds a B.S. in Marketing & Corporate Communications from Bentley University.
Safety Partners (2025). Incidents, Accidents, and Near Misses in Laboratory Research: Highlighting the Critical Role of Emergency Response Training. Available at: https://safetypartnersinc.com/incidents-accidents-and-near-misses-in-laboratory-research-highlighting-the-critical-role-of-emergency-response-training/
Van Noorden, R. (2013). Safety survey reveals lab risks. Available at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/safety-survey-reveals-lab-risks/
Safety Partners (2025). Incidents, Accidents, and Near Misses in Laboratory Research. Available at: https://safetypartnersinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/IANM_Publication_Vol_9_DIGITAL.pdf
Van Noorden, R. (2013). Safety survey reveals lab risks. Available at: http://www.nature.com/news/safety-survey-reveals-lab-risks-1.12121
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