Temporary works failures still follow the same control gaps
This week’s HSE and CROSS picture is familiar: platforms used as crash decks with no design, props that ignore the existing structure, and excavations treated as a hole rather than a temporary works item. The lesson is not new kit — it is procedure, competence and load path.
What this week confirms
Industry reporting this month has grouped recent HSE prosecutions around foreseeable construction risks: temporary platforms, excavation access and plant interface. None of these are exotic. They sit in every Temporary Works Register if the register is being used honestly.
The recurring failure pattern
Based on published HSE and CROSS material, the same sequence keeps appearing: an item is treated as ‘just temporary’; no design brief is written; loading is assumed rather than calculated; inspection is a tick rather than a competent review; and coordination between principal contractor and specialist contractor is verbal. Standard does not automatically mean low risk — a timber crash deck over a riser shaft is a high-consequence item the moment people work beneath it.
What a competent TWC should do this week
- Walk the live Temporary Works Register against what is actually on site — platforms, crash decks, trench access, makeshift bridges and un-designed packing.
- Ask for the design, the check category, the permit-to-load/use and the last competent inspection for every item carrying people or debris.
- Treat ‘verbal instruction not to overload’ as a control failure unless a safe load has been calculated and posted.
- Escalate incomplete briefs: existing structure capacity, load path to foundation, and who is TWC must be named, not assumed.
Sources
Three HSE cases, one message: foreseeable risks were not controlled
Concrete Connect’s 11 August review of three HSE prosecutions is worth circulating to every TWS and site manager. A timber platform, a rainwater-filled excavation and an unprotected edge to plant movement — all foreseeable, all temporary works territory.
The three cases
Reporting on 11 August 2026 grouped three HSE prosecutions: the Paxton House timber platform collapse (incident 23 February 2024; fines confirmed June 2026); a labourer drowned after falling into a rainwater-filled foundation excavation at Bovingdon, where unsecured makeshift timber bridges without handrails were used; and a one-tonne dumper overturn into an unprotected excavation after workers had been instructed not to wear seat belts.
Why this is temporary works, not just ‘H&S’
Crash decks, excavation access, trench bridging and vehicle-edge protection are temporary works items. They belong on the register, they need a design or a documented standard solution, they need a permit and they need inspection by someone competent for that item. CDM 2015 duties on planning, managing and monitoring construction work are not discharged by a RAMS that nobody supervised.
Practical control points
- Add crash decks, debris platforms and ‘temporary boarding’ to the Temporary Works Register — they are structures that carry load.
- Ban makeshift excavation bridges. If people must cross, specify a designed or proprietary access with edge protection, bearing and inspection.
- Protect excavations against plant and people. An open edge next to a dumper is a temporary works and traffic-management item.
- Check that the person signing inspections is actually competent for the item — not merely available.
Sources
Paxton House: a timber platform, no design, life-changing injury
Two firms were fined in June 2026 after a temporary wooden platform loaded with concrete debris collapsed onto a drilling operative at Paxton House in the City of London. There was no design and no calculated safe load.
What happened
On 23 February 2024, during refurbishment at Paxton House in the City of London, openings were being cut through concrete floors to form a service riser. Temporary timber platforms had been built under openings to catch 16 kg concrete cores and debris. A platform gave way. Steve Zschoch, a Diacutt drilling operative, sustained fractures to his neck and back and a bleed on the brain. He has not been able to work since. He described being ‘folded up like a concertina’.
The court outcome
At Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 11 June 2026, Roots Contractors Ltd (principal contractor) was fined £19,333 plus £5,548 costs for breaching CDM 2015 Regulation 16(2). Diacutt Ltd was fined £13,000 plus £5,548 costs for breaching CDM 2015 Regulation 15(2). HSE published the prosecution on 15 June 2026.
What HSE found
- No design for the temporary platforms and no calculation of a safe loading level.
- An inspection form was completed but did not identify the design gap; the person completing it was not a competent Temporary Works Coordinator.
- Workers had a verbal instruction to clear platforms and not overload them — with no safe load established and no effective monitoring.
- RAMS were inconsistent on ‘crash decks’; coordination and supervision of who worked where (including not working directly below one another) were weak.
Inspector’s statement — use this in your next TWS briefing
HSE inspector Lucy Ellison-Dunn: ‘Those providing temporary works have a duty to ensure that any temporary structure is properly designed and constructed to withstand any foreseeable load that might be imposed on it. This means having appropriate arrangements in place to manage temporary works.’
TWC takeaway
A crash deck collecting demolition or drilling arisings is a loaded working platform. It needs a brief, a design (or a justified standard solution), a check, a permit-to-use, a posted load limit and competent inspection. ‘Don’t overload it’ is not a design. Provisional category for a platform over a live work area with public or occupied floors below is not Cat 0 by default — confirm under the project procedure.
Sources
CROSS 1539: props that never checked the existing slab and beam
CROSS-UK Report 1539 (14 May 2026) is a near-miss that should be mandatory reading for anyone designing propping in occupied buildings. The props could take the force. The existing RC beams and slab could not.
The situation
A reporter was asked to advise on temporary works to allow removal of a defective reinforced concrete column at the base of a multi-storey block of flats, to be replaced by a new steel column. Estimated characteristic load over 1,165 kN; design load around 1,590 kN. Heavy-duty props were proposed to support beams and slab either side of the column. The prop designer had not checked the existing structure.
Why it was unsafe
The proposed props could handle the forces. The existing beams and slabs were insufficient to transfer the loads, with a risk of failure in bending and shear. The column above would have continued to load the system. The reporter identified this through opening-up works, designed a more complex temporary works system and prepared a method statement. CROSS comments that this indicates a failure of the temporary works procedure — no Temporary Works Coordinator or checking engineer appointed on a significant structure.
Learning outcomes (CROSS)
- Always verify the full load path when introducing temporary supports — including existing beams, slabs, walls and foundations that will carry redistributed load.
- Do not design props in isolation. Adequacy of the proprietary unit is not adequacy of the scheme.
- Design briefs must require assessment of the existing structure where loads will be transferred.
- Contractors and TWCs must ensure propping schemes are coordinated, checked and approved before installation.
- Refurbishment creates complex temporary load cases. Each stage — permanent, temporary, back to permanent — must be planned.
How we would treat this on a live project
Provisional category only — to be confirmed by the TWC and the project temporary works procedure. A column replacement under an occupied multi-storey frame is high-consequence, unusual load path, and incomplete permanent works stability. That combination typically needs a robust brief, competent design, independent check and hold points for opening-up, prop load, and column removal. Do not proceed until reviewed and accepted by the competent person under the project temporary works procedure.
Sources
ICE: temporary works are still hidden in plain sight
The Institution of Civil Engineers’ 12 May 2026 explainer is a useful plain-English reminder for clients and site teams: falsework, formwork, platforms, hoardings and sequence are engineering, not background noise. BS 5975 exists because people died getting this wrong.
What ICE set out
On 12 May 2026 ICE published a public-facing guide to temporary works: engineering solutions used to support, protect, provide or test elements while the permanent works are built. Examples include falsework, formwork, scaffolding, working platforms with edge protection, hoardings, hoists and site services. Temporary works also include the sequence of the permanent works so the structure does not become unstable mid-construction.
The five-step control ICE described
- Appointments — named people and organisations, including the Temporary Works Coordinator.
- Register — a live record of items, not a spreadsheet started at tender and never updated.
- Design brief — risks, constraints, loads and what ‘done’ looks like.
- Design and check — including the TWC’s confirmation that the check is appropriate.
- Permit and hold points — inspected on site before load, use, alteration or strike.
Why the history still matters
ICE recaps the line from major accidents in the 1950s–70s, including the Loddon Viaduct collapse in 1972, through the Bragg Report (1975) to BS 5975 (first published 1982). The 2024 revision split the standard: BS 5975-1 for management procedures and BS 5975-2 for falsework design. That split is useful — but only if both parts are actually used. A design to Part 2 without Part 1 control is a drawing without a permit.
Use it as a toolbox talk
This explainer is written for a wide audience. That makes it a good handout for clients, supervisors and graduates. Pair it with a site example from your own register: one item, one brief, one check, one permit, one inspection. Then ask: which of our live items cannot show all five?
Sources
No briefings in that filter. Choose All to see the full list.
