High risks on the building site

John Robinson died in hospital three days after being injured

An Inside Out investigation has uncovered a lack of concern for safety within the scaffolding industry.

In 2007, 45 workers died and 3,750 others were seriously injured following falls from height.

Despite tighter regulations and training, construction is one of the most dangerous industries in Britain.

Mark Robinson had worked with his father, John, on and off since he left school.

When Mark got his dad a job on the same building site in Milton Keynes, little did he know it would end in a devastating accident.

In April 2006 they were working 15 floors off the ground when the scaffolding collapsed.

Mark said: "The first I knew something was wrong, Dad was working below me - he was passing tiles up to me.

I just felt myself being thrown to the left. You could hear a slide of the boards and metal clanging together Mark Robinson

"I had my back to the building and I just felt myself being thrown to the left.

"You could hear a slide of the boards and metal clanging together.

"Next thing I knew, I was on the floor. I don't know how much time had passed, but the emergency services were there."

John and Mark Robinson were both injured and taken to hospital but John later died.

His death was accidental, according to the inquest. No-one has been prosecuted, but the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is investigating.

Despite the dangers of the industry, Inside Out uncovered a surprising disregard for safety among some workers.

During the investigation, we did not have to look far to find examples of bad and illegal practice by workers in the building industry.

In one day alone we found examples of workers wearing inadequate clothing, including soft shoes and trainers. Some were not wearing hard hats, high visibility jackets or belts for their tools.

This worker had no hard hat or safety harness

We witnessed workers employed by one of the leading scaffolding companies in East Anglia throwing items to a colleague in an area which was not closed off from the public. None of the workers was wearing a harness.

Mobile phones are banned from most building sites, but we witnessed a man on the phone not wearing a harness or hard hat.

Inside Out spoke to their employer who said health and safety issues were taken very seriously, and said they would investigate the alleged breaches.

The company added that staff had been trained at the National Construction College and had been given safety training and harness awareness training.

The National Construction College near King's Lynn is a centre for excellence for training in the construction industry, but not everyone has such thorough training.

Tighter regulations

Chris Barrett, the college's training manager, said: "As with all industries, there's a part of the industry that's very, very professional.

"You've got lots of companies that spend significant amounts of money ensuring staff are trained, ensuring scaffolds are designed correctly, supervising operations, making sure good health and safety procedures are in place.

"But as with all things, there are some people that don't follow those procedures - it's like driving a car, you take a driving test, you know what you should do but some people choose to ignore that. You see some pretty risky scaffolds as a result."

The National Access and Scaffold Confederation is a trade body which wants tighter regulations.

"I feel strongly about the safety aspect because I want to protect my workforce," said Alastair Mackenzie from the Confederation.

"I see so many breaches out there from people who are supposed to be competitors of ours."

One of the problems in the building industry appears to be the pressure to drive prices down since it takes longer to follow the rules and it slows down productivity, costing companies more money.

Four months after his accident, Mark Robinson returned to work.

His mother Christine said: "When he first said he wanted to go back, I was really worried.

"I'd lost my husband - I could have lost my son.

"Everyday in my mind, he is up on scaffolding... I hope whoever erected that scaffolding did it properly and it is safe, for my son and anyone else on it."

The BBC Inside Out programme can be seen in the East on BBC1 at 1930 GMT on Wednesday 17 September.