The Work at Height Regulations 2005

Interpretation E+W+S

2.—(1) In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires—

“the 1974 Act” means the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974;

“access” and “egress” include ascent and descent;

“construction work” has the meaning assigned to it by regulation 2(1) of [F1 the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations [F2 2015]];

“fragile surface” means a surface which would be liable to fail if any reasonably foreseeable loading were to be applied to it;

“ladder” includes a fixed ladder and a stepladder;

“line” includes rope, chain or webbing;

“the Management Regulations” means the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 M1 ;

“personal fall protection system” means—

(a)

a fall prevention, work restraint, work positioning, fall arrest or rescue system, other than a system in which the only safeguards are collective safeguards; or

(b)

rope access and positioning techniques;

“suitable” means suitable in any respect which it is reasonably foreseeable will affect the safety of any person;

“work at height” means—

(a)

work in any place, including a place at or below ground level;

(b)

obtaining access to or egress from such place while at work, except by a staircase in a permanent workplace,

where, if measures required by these Regulations were not taken, a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury;

“work equipment” means any machinery, appliance, apparatus, tool or installation for use at work (whether exclusively or not) and includes anything to which regulation 8 and Schedules 2 to 6 apply;

“working platform”—

(a)

means any platform used as a place of work or as a means of access to or egress from a place of work;

(b)

includes any scaffold, suspended scaffold, cradle, mobile platform, trestle, gangway, gantry and stairway which is so used.

(2) Any reference in these Regulations to the keeping of a report or copy of a report or plan shall include reference to its being kept in a form—

(a) in which it is capable of being reproduced as a printed copy when required;

(b) which is secure from loss or unauthorised interference.

Textual Amendments

F1 Words in reg. 2(1) substituted (6.4.2007) by The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 (S.I. 2007/320), reg. 1, Sch. 5 (with reg. 3)

F2 Word in reg. 2(1) substituted (6.4.2015) by The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (S.I. 2015/51), reg. 1, Sch. 5 (with reg. 3, Sch. 4)

Marginal Citations

M1 S.I. 1999/3242, to which there are amendments not relevant to these Regulations.