HSG47 Guidance From The HSE

HSG47 is guidance from the Health and Safety Executive on how to avoid the dangers from striking underground services when carrying out any sort of excavation work. It is the latest, and third, edition, and was issued in 2014.

As the HSE says, the guidance applies to anywhere that underground services may be found, such as street works; road works; excavation, digging, and piling; demolition and site remediation; site investigation surveys; and “any other work that involves penetrating the ground at or below surface level.” In other words, everywhere. They could have just used the last one and that would have covered it!

The sad fact is that there are some 60,000 strikes of underground services in the UK every year, many causing serious injury, and some of which are fatal. This is despite the fact that responsible contractors do take the trouble to carry out a site survey before they begin digging, using the two main tools, which are the CAT and the Genny.

The problem appears to be that many contractors do not understand the limitations of these two tools, and their surveyors have not been trained in their correct use on a fully-fledged HSG47 training course. If that were not the case, how would there be about 230 utility strikes every working day of the year? It simply wouldn’t happen.

This is why, if you are a contractor involved in any sort of work which involves ground penetration, you should ensure that your surveyors attend an HSG47 course which will teach everything that there is to know about the CAT and Genny, including – most importantly – their limitations. They do have certain limitations: for example, the depth to which they can read. This is just one reason why you should only dig down a foot in an area believed free of utilities because it may be the case that they are actually there, but that the CAT and Genny couldn’t locate them. So you need to check again before digging further.