Following on from several instances of tower cranes collapsing over the last few years new legislation was introduced on 6th April 2010. The Notification of Conventional Tower Cranes Regulations 2010 requires certain information about conventional tower cranes used on construction sites to be notified to the Health and Safety Executive.

The duty to ensure that HSE is notified applies to employers (including self employed persons) in relation to such tower cranes ‘provided for use or used by their employee at work’. In practice this will mean the employee responsible for the inspections under the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 will do the notification.

Notifications can be submitted online at http://www.cranesregister.org.uk or by post by completing a form which can either be downloaded from the aforementioned website, or by contacting HSE’s Infoline for a form and submitting it to HSE Cranes Register, Health and Safety Executive, Field Operations Division, London Divisional Administrative Office, Rose Court, 2 Southwark Bridge, London SE1 9HS.

Further details can be found at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg437.pdf