Blog

The HSE estimates around 12,000 deaths from lung diseases in the UK each year are caused by exposure to airborne contaminants in the workplace, with around 5.5 million employees at risk of respiratory diseases. Despite numerous guidance documents and online resources published by the HSE detailing the selection, use and maintenance of RPE, many businesses and workplaces still manage to get it wrong.…

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No two assets or monitoring projects are the same, so why select off-the-shelf monitoring systems to deliver the data and insight required to inform vital decision making on your next project? Nick Slater, monitoring services director for SOCOTEC Monitoring, discusses the benefits of bespoke geotechnical and structural monitoring systems vs the risks of using a monitoring system off-the-shelf.…

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Ports and harbours play a huge role in driving the UK’s economy, so ensuring that they are well maintained, able to accommodate future growth and have minimal impact on the environment is vital. Understanding the behaviour of marine assets and the impact operations have on marine life and local communities is a core component of long term planning and decision making, from design stages through to construction and operation.…

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Where iron and manganese deposits build up within a water system, tank or pipe, the pressure of the water system can decrease – leading to an increase in energy costs as a result of inefficiency.…

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The health and safety responsibility and management of facilities in public sector buildings can fall across a number of varying roles. With more than 500,000 public buildings still estimated to contain asbestos today, the requirement to manage asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) remains a big responsibility for public sector managers.…

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Understanding the structural integrity of the UK’s highway infrastructure is critical to pavement construction and central to the design and optimisation of highway maintenance.  Here Tom Green, technical manager, discusses non-destructive testing and the valuable insight these test methods provide to civil engineers.…

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Our climate is changing. According to The Met Office’s UK Climate Projections analysis tool, by 2070 there could be up to 35% more precipitation in winter. Evidence also exists to suggest that this precipitation is likely to become more extreme, with intense, prolonged periods of rainfall increasingly common. This is a big issue for the UK’s rail infrastructure.…

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Renewable energy is now created in many forms, with an important contributor being the energy generated from biomass. Using systems such as gasification, anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis, bioenergy and biofuels have developed considerably over recent years.…

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With most of the UK railways electrified, the rail environment has the potential to create high electromagnetic fields (EMFs) as part of its day-to-day operation. All employers are required to assess risks in the workplace and implement control measures to reduce any identified risk – and EMF is no exception to this rule. Therefore, without proper controls in place, the high electrical voltage on the railway has the potential to expose workers to EMFs.…

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COSHH stands for the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health, first introduced in 1988 by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Aiming to reduce accidents and minimise the risk to employee health in the workplace, COSHH was introduced to ensure any business using hazardous substances does so in a controlled and safe way.…

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