I know this paper aspires to be the local Daily Mail but the phrase “elf & safety” isn’t remotely funny when the idiot Littlejohn uses it, so why would it be funny when you do? I could have taken your points seriously without the playground opening line.

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It’s not like me to defend the Star, but this was a LETTER from a reader (experienced readers would have known that it wasn’t written by a Star journalist by the lack of “bosses ” or “chiefs”). The headline was drawn from the first and last sentences.

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totally agree

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THIS GUYS NOT A h&s CONSULTANT or he wouldnt trivialise important issues of life and death and he would know that the building regulations stipulate the height/drop of any edge/ledge or overhang, imagine someone falling in there, this man needs to go back to college and do his H&S degree all over again

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im concerned british spelling and grammer just isnt what it used to be

i thought an elf was a little creature?

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why dont you just bring your own pitch fork along, you wouldnt expect the swimming baths to provide you with goggles would you?

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MORE EU RULES

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Danny,

Maybe we just have so little industry left with dangerous machinery and that’s why accidents have decreased?

Peter,

Grammar had two a’s when I was at school.

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I stuck a fork through my welly and my toe went septic and I was a burden on the health service – its no laughing matter, those wellies were very expensive (as worn by the Royal Family!)

Have these townies never heard of a scuvin? Well its like a cross between a fork and a shovel. Pan shaped to hold a load but with prongs to slide into a load, but the prongs have bulbous knobs on the end to prevent stabbing – it really is simple.

So if Typoo put the T in Britain, who put the elf in Telford?

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Jackie when I was young we play conkers but health and safety say it is too dangerous now. Elements of health and safety are ok but many jobsworths go OTT with a little power that is why health and safety has a bad image in the media huni.

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y mab its common knowledge that the banning of conkers in school playgrounds is an urban myth, that ‘old chestnut’ never happened it just came from a ‘joke’ memo circulated by a head joking that kids should wear eye glasses for playing conkers, it never got banned really. To counter this myth, the Health and Safety Executive even sponsored a conkers tournament , but you never read about that in the red tops.

the other one you always hear is from a case in Devon where it was reported that, to avoid the risk of injury when sliding down poles, a new fire station had not been equipped with a traditional pole. The real reason the fire station did not have a pole was the lack of space. There are no regulations banning the use of poles in fire stations.

I dont know who puts these myths out, but i think the Daily Mail has a lot to do with it they are just lies as i say above i can only assume motivated by anti EU feelings

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I don’t read the Daily Mail,Jackie but have now logged on to their website to read some of their hilarious H and S stories….they can’t all be made up, surely, Jackie. If I was in H and S I think I would be too embarrased to admit it!

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BRIAN(2), you said you ‘don’t read the Daily Mail’.

Jackie, I recommend that you read what BRIAN(2) says in another discussion ( http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/10/21/arson-attack-on-speed-camera/ #80).

Keep up the good work, jackie.

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10 out of 10 for footloose comments

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yeah right Niall that comment sounds really intelligent in light of the near total collapse of capitalism caused by ‘light touch’ regulation of the banks… Think before you type, no one in the world thinks we should be deregulating anything any more

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Wow! Impressive bashing from virtually all and sundry without asking further questions regarding why the real reason this decision has been made.

Part of the problem with much of the publicised H&S initiatives throughout the UK is that you only ever hear 2 types of story. The first is where someone has put in place a H&S policy that appears to be either over-engineered to tackle a problem or they have put into place a policy without actually understanding what the real risks are. In either of these cases the real problem tends to be badly made decisions that have been put into force becasue a lack of essential knowledge or a lack of professional advice.

The second type of story tends to be that of a worker who has suffered either injuries or death as a result of insufficient policy to protect them in their workplace by their company. The question is what’s better? Being over zealous or being dead?

Health and Safety is an easy target for anyone who wants a pop at ‘the powers that be’ and especially Europe but the real reason why many policies are brought in are either there to protect workers & public from incident/accident or, perhaps more often, to protect companies from legal action when something does happen and ensures that they have corporate responsibility rather than operating in a ‘neo-liberal’ fashion. Additionally the blame culture which is encouraged by the ambulance chasers out there has also had a significant influence on this as well.

So, if you see a piece of H&S policy which doesn’t seem to make sense ask for more details before jumping to the same old tired conclusions. Chances are that maybe someone has been stabbed by a fork and this is the easiest solution to the problem and if it prevents someone else from being hurt then a little inconvenience is the least people can suffer as apposed to physical injury.

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Peter, I agree with you about regulations, which protect workers from death and injury in the workplace.

And I also agree with you about the need for regulation of the globalised financial system

This is one of the central policies of the Green New Deal (see this article outlining this policy from July 21, 2008 http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/07/21/experts-call-for-credit-and-climate-crunch-action/ ).

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I think financial regualations and health regualtions are different things entirely, both need controlling risk but both need to not suffocate people, like environmental regualtions or any regulation we need smart regualtion, targetted to achieve maximum effect but flexible, an example id give of a good one would be carbon emissions trading because it places an overall cap on emissions but allows businesses struggling to comply to trade their way out of the regs by buying a ‘permit to pollute’ off another instead, this means less overall cost to achieve the same level of beneift, bigger bank for our buck, its smart, market based and it works, we need more of this and more common sense, i support regualtion, but banning pitch forks does seem a little petty to me

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common sense. you’re having a laugh.

just as we laugh at rulings from the 18 th century, many many years from now students at learning institutions will split their sides with laughter at how pathetic our legislature was.

buffoons, absolute knuckle dragging buffoons.

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I think that this thing with over-zealous interpretations of rules, whether health and safety related or otherwise is a peculiarly British thing.

The anti-EU types are forever telling us that EU directives don’t apply to the French Germans etc. in the same way that they do for us. The fact of the matter is that the same regulations do apply, but we seem to have a unique ability to breed the sort of ‘jobsworths’ who seem incapable of applying a common-sense interpretation of ‘the rules’ within the context of the actual situation.

An example for you. Some years ago I went to one of the very first Birmingham German Christmas markets, with my daghter, then some 3 months old. She was in one of those carry along/car seat arrangements. There was a stall selling mulled wine – just the thing for a chilly December day, thought I.

There was a sign saying ‘No children under 18 allowed’ and the stall was separated by a rope barrier from the rest of the market. Fair enough, I thought – you don’t want teenagers trying to buy alcohol if they’re under age.

So in I walked, carrying my daughter, and was promptly stopped by a flunkey who told me I couldn’t approach the stall. I pointed out that there was no risk of my 3-month old child drinking any alcohol, and that it would be an unnaccetpable risk to leave her sitting outside the roped area on the pavement while I bought some wine, but he was having none of it.

Needless to say, the wine went unbought. But there was nothing wrong with the intention of the rule – simply his narrow, stupid interpetation of it.

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So you ‘don’t read the Daily Mail’ (#23), but you DO read it online, without actually buying it, and you buy the Shropshire Star, which is not actually a daily paper. Thanks for clarifying.

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Mr Peach, as a newspaper expert can you tell what Viz is classified as?

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makes you question their approach to risk assessment in light of their plans to burn the rubbish here in a supposedly “safe” incinerator which could cause cancers and breathing problems locally

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John: They have plastic forks and cutlery in prisons. I expect this is a H&S/Human Rights matter, so expect the sale of stainless steel cutlery to be banned by EU very soon.

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