In some ways you can’t blame them

Residents transform dingy back alley into a glorious secret garden only to be told it’s a health and safety risk – by the SAME council that gave them multiple awards for it These types of stories are all too commonplace these days, and invariably nothing really to do with Elf and Shifty, or at least concern for the well-being of …

Water and biccies anyone?

For seven long years, parents at the Mill Hill Children’s Centre, Waterlooville, Hampshire, have merrily drunk tea and coffee and dunked their digestives while their their kids played. They even pay for the privilege. But not any more.

Thought this was all supposed to stop

A lollipop man who helps youngsters from St Mary’s Primary School in Shenfield, Essex, across a busy road has been banned from stepping off the pavement to help children cross the road because health and safety rules now state that it is too dangerous for him to step onto the road. Now he just presses the button at the pedestrian …

Health and safety first

People may laugh at the recent Health and Safety signs in the UK warning people to beware of falling acorns, but in Switzerland they have taken things a step further. Concerns about the dangers of falling leaves in autumn have led to strict regulations being imposed relating to cafes located in wooded areas.

It just gets worse

It never seems to stop. Health and Safety officials cancelled a parade by reindeer in Market Harborough……because it might snow! Cancelling the event, anticipated by the locals, cost around £10,000. OK, though, it’s only taxpayer money. The reason for the cancellation was that it might snow and therefore be slippery for people walking in the area. Well, wouldn’t it be …

Startling discovery

The so-called Health and Safety brigade in the UK have, after two years of study costing in the region of £250,000, actually discovered a hitherto unknown danger to families, particularly children and teenagers. How this glaring  danger has escaped everyone’s attention is baffling, but it has. It could, just possibly, be due to the fact that there has never, to …

Health and Safety is the excuse again

Brian Bendle was standing in shallow water, about six inches deep, at a leisure lake in Somerset, waiting to take his jet ski out when he was hit by another machine travelling at 50 mph. The impact knocked him down, leaving him face down in the water. Onlookers rushed into the water to help Mr Bendle but, not wanting to …

Elf and Shifty madness

Police, firemen and paramedics refused to go to the aid of an accident victim who was drowning in eighteen inches of water because they ‘believed’ it was too dangerous. A senior fire officer banned his men from using ropes and ladders to climb down a 15 foot embankment to the victim after carrying out a ‘risk assessment’. The slope of the …

Send for nanny

Despite the results of a UK Government-funded report last year which concluded that ‘perceived health and safety regulations were felt to have systematically undermined communities and the quality of their children’s education’, creeping nannyism still seems to be rife, and still on the increase.

Elf and Shifty strike again

I cannot recall ever reading about the Great Bodleian Step-Ladder Disaster, and if it’s stored on the top shelf of the library, I probably won’t get the chance now.