13th May 2005, 12:58 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by achingknees
It would be great if more curators took an interest in these issues and actually stated H&S requirements in their briefs, followed up by a few on-site enquiries.
No worries Aching! Health and Safety is everyone's responsibility on site, so anyone can and should raise it as an issue. All archaeologists at any level should be aware of what they are entitled to on site, and what conditions should be considered unsafe and/or unacceptable. Briefs and method statements for sites are usually just archaeological in nature, so H&S requirements are often given a blanket statement that the site operations will be carried out in accordance with current legislation and best practice. I look out for unsafe stuff when I do monitoring visits, but in a half hour visit it's easy to miss some of the day-to-day casual bad practice that often goes on (I was a digger too once so I do remember a few things to look out for!). We all need to help each other in this, so get informed folks! Once you know what the current legislation is, you can start forcing the standards on site up to acceptable levels.