Use of temporary barriers to control access to hazards

The reporter has been involved with a number of mining sites and port facilities where temporary barricades (e.g. using scaffolding) have been used to control risk due to structural hazards such as unsafe flooring, missing handrails, etc. In many cases, these barricades have been left in position for months or years and the reporter is concerned that this is not an appropriate long-term control for structural risks. The following examples are given:

1.    A scaffold barricade was placed to prevent access to a corroded walkway. However, at some point in the following 12 months, the barricade was removed. During a subsequent site visit the reporter inspected the walkway from below and decided that, due to its poor condition, it required a closer and more detailed inspection. Whilst testing the soundness of the first-floor mesh panel from a ladder the mesh gave way and collapsed. Only the fact that the reporter was holding on to the ladder saved them from serious injury.

2.    In this case the owner of a moth-balled plant requested that a structural engineer inspect a number of areas of the plant that had been barricaded off as structurally unsafe prior to the moth-ball process. However, no record had been kept of why the barricades had been placed. In some areas the reporter was able to identify structural defects that may have explained the barricade; however, in other areas, there was no obvious reason why the structure was not sound. It was therefore unclear whether the barricades had been placed incorrectly, or whether the reporter had missed an important issue jeopardising the safety of the structure and personnel.

Using the hierarchy of risk controls, many people assume that barricading would be a high-level control (equivalent to an engineered control) in that it prevents exposure to the hazard. However, barricading actually depends on an administrative control (which is at the low end of the hierarchy of risk controls) for its implementation. Usually, there would be some sort of “paper tag” system to indicate why the barricade had been put in position, and a record kept by someone somewhere that the barricade had been installed, both of which are error-prone administrative systems. For example, if the tag blows away or is damaged there is nothing to indicate the purpose of the barricade. With scaffold and other types of hard barricades, these tend to be removed for re-use elsewhere as part of general site clean-ups. This might explain what happened in example 1 above.

However, even if the tag remains in place, the reporter’s experience is that it usually does not contain significant detail about the hazard being controlled, leaving uncertainty in the future as to the nature of the hazard. This exposes personnel to hazards when trying to inspect or identify the problem and raises the risk that the issue could be missed and the barricade removed without addressing the underlying issue (as in example 2 above).

It is the reporter’s opinion that engineers and others involved in the operation and management of industrial and similar facilities should discourage the use of temporary barricading to control access to structural (or other) hazards and should encourage more direct (and appropriate) means of controlling these issues. These could include rectification of the original issue or installation of permanent handrails or guarding. If barricading is required, it should be considered to be a short-term administrative-type control only, until more permanent means of addressing the issue are implemented. Additionally, a clear reason for installing the barricade should be recorded somewhere easily accessible to other personnel, and someone made responsible for ensuring the barricade is inspected and maintained until the hazard is addressed permanently.