Does Safe Design Cost More, and How Can We Strike the Right Balance?

The cost of safety in design…

Here’s an interesting debate on design safety and cost that was recently discussed at this year’s Safety Expo – this relates to work at height in particular.  The exchange was made into a youtube video by the AIF and I have attached that video in the featured videos section.  Some very good points are made about whether considering safety at the design stage does in fact cost more.

Important issues such as buildability and maintainability can have major effects on the design and if these happen at a late stage then costs to re-design and get additional approvals can rocket.  Also the point was made that the maintenance costs over the life of a building can be as much as 200 to 1 (so that for every £1 in building costs, £200 will be spect over the building’s life in maintaining it! This cost could be considerably reduced by looking at ease of maintenance.  For instance, if accessing the roof of a building to maintain plant, equipment or the building fabric requires specialist equipment and specially trained contractors, the costs are already shooting up…

One of the most hard hitting points though was made by a member of the audience who said:

“everyone has the right to expect to have a safe place from which to work and if that’s the premise that people start with when they’re designing, that colours their judgement on what they should be providing and very very cynically, I reckon if it was a law passed that the designer had to use the equipment first, then I’m sure some of the equipment we see being used would never be there, because they wouldn’t get on it!”

Check it out under “featured videos”