Building sites are dangerous places; so making sure that health and safety is done right is of paramount importance. That’s why there are usually specific routes for pedestrians or workers to use when navigating a building site, and these are often referred to as Green Routes.
There should, in theory, be no danger to a person correctly using a green route on a building site. But that doesn’t mean that rules will not be broken, or people will fail to follow procedure.
What if:
- There is something like a truck blocking the route meaning you have to go around it – being injured in the process or perhaps even being hit by another vehicle when using the ground near the green route to get around the obstruction?
- You are hit by a vehicle on a green route who should not be using the green route for access with their vehicle?
- Pipes or cables being laid in the ground go through a green route and there is insufficient means of crossing a gap on the route, or a bridge or support collapses when walking over it?
In any of the scenarios above, you may have a claim for a work injury compensation. Someone is in breach of the green route rules, and their breach of important healthy and safety has caused your accident. This is the main ingredient for making a claim for personal injury compensation; a breach of duty that has caused an accident and injury / loss.
There will often be several contractors and deliveries on building sites, and sometimes these companies or their employees can be rather flippant with health and safety rules; and that’s when accidents occur. Using the common example above of a blocked route, all it takes is a delivery driver to park across a green route or a truck from a contractor to do the same and you can end up with a problem.
Who is at fault?
It could depend – if a contractor or delivery company has breached the green route rules you may have a right of action directly against them. But your employer still has the overriding duty to look after your wellbeing on the site so they could equally be as liable; especially if a site manager or supervisor fails to take action if they notice a breach of the green route rules.
But you can leave the leg work for finding out who is at fault with us – that’s what we’re here for!
