The Work at Height Regulations 2005

Who and when do the Regulations apply?

Regulation 3 tells you in detail who the entire WAHR apply to and when, and it's pretty straightforward.

For a start, they apply only at work. If you're an employer, employee, self-employed or contractor, then they can apply to you. If you're doing things in your own time (DIY, household tasks, sport, leisure and so on) then they do not. Currently, they have exemptions for those instructing sport climbing and caving however it is planned that an amendment of the Regulations will be issued in early 2007 to remove this exemption. The only other classes of people who can be "at work" but exempt are the master and crew of a ship (Reg 3.4) and those engaged in dock operations, loading or unloading of fishing vessels.

So, everyone else who's 'at work' can be required to follow the Work at Height Regulations... but what is 'work at height' anyways? When does 'being up in the air' count as being 'too high'?

The old legislation made that question very hard to answer, but the WAHR make it extremely simple. Reg 2.1 says that work at height means:

1. work in any place, including a place at or below ground level;
2. obtaining access to or egress from such place while at work, except by a staircase in a permanent workplace,

where, if measures required by these Regulations were not taken, a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury.

In other words, if you are someplace where a fall could injure you, the regulations apply. They do NOT apply when climbing normal stairs in buildings (where obviously you can still fall over and hurt yourself, but nobody can expect people to wear harnesses!) but everything else counts - such as:

1. Climbing fixed or temporary ladders, stepladders, stools, etc
2. Using mobile platforms (cherry pickers, forklifts, MEWPs, scaffold towers)
3. Climbing on structures (towers, masts, pylons, cliffs and buildings, scaffolding, etc)
4. Industrial abseiling and rope access
5. Working near unprotected edges on rooftops or in warehouses
6. Working in confined spaces with shafts, unprotected edges or trenches
7. Working on or near fragile surfaces (domestic roofing, skylights, hatches, etc)
8. Using trestles and planking in construction and bricklaying
9. Operating cranes with high cabs
10. Working on the top of large vehicles (HGVs, tankers, quarry plant, etc)
11. Tree climbing and arboriculture
12. Working in quarries near unprotected edges, trenches or unstable ground

Obviously there are more if you think hard enough, but you can get the idea. If it'll hurt when you land, you're working at height! So here are a few that you won't have thought about....

1. Standing on chairs or desks to reach things from high shelving
2. Standing on the roof of a car or van (falling off a Transit will certainly hurt you!)
3. Digging a 2 metre deep hole in the middle of a road
4. Leaning out of an open window

Naturally the Regulations don't expect a secretary to harness themselves to the ceiling to get a file from a high shelf, but because the Regs apply they would have to use a safe and approved work method.. in other words no standing on the chair - go find a stepladder instead! This is an example of the way the Regulations help simply by being there.. nobody will expect a full compliance assessment for standing on the desk to change a lightbulb, but the Regs will tell you that standing on a desk is actually a pretty silly idea to start with, so if you don't mind please go and get the stepladder and do things properly before you slip and break your face.

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