subject: The Lowdown On Construction Phase Plans [print this page] One of the obligations of a principal contractor, under the Construction (Design & Management) 2007 Regulations, is to write up a construction phase plan before commencing any construction work on a site. It's also worthy to note that construction phase plans are also called construction safety plans.
If you're wondering what health and safety management means, it refers to thinking in a preventive manner about where potential and hazards are likely to be found, and then planning how to provide:
* Safe work places
* Safe systems of work
* Safety awareness within the workforce and
* Appropriate monitoring that safety controls are effective
The construction phase plan must identify and assesses all hazards associated with the works and control measures to be implemented during the construction phase of the project to ensure that personnel working on site, members of the public and visitors to the site are adequately protected from risk of injury or illness.
The type and extent of the project will ultimately determine the amount of detail that is included in the plan. It must be remembered that the plan must be specific for a certain project and should be built using the information supplied by the CDM Coordinator as well as the preconstruction information.
The second most important aspect of any plan is its implementation, and in the past, it has been shown that if people are consulted about a plan, then they are more likely to embrace it; at the end of the day, what's at stake is their health and they have to take ownership of the plan. Also the plan needs to be a live document and as such should be regularly reviewed and updated as works progress on site.
How to prepare a construction phase plan
You have few options available to get your Construction phase plan compliant to CDM 2007 regulations; they are:
* You prepare your own plan with the expertise and resources available in your organisation (preferred option)
* You outsource and hire a consultant to draft for you (least preferred option)
* You get a template from providers on the internet and you tailored to specifics of your project (beware that some offer ready to use documents and that is impossible)
The choice is yours, the bottom line is to have a plan that:
* Easy to implement
* Written in plain English so everyone understand it and
* Compliant to CDM 2007 regulations
If you don't have the expertise or resources to write a plan from scratch, you can get a Construction phase plan with all those attributes on the internet.
