Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007

Interpretation for Part 4.

94

94. (1) In this Part:

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

“fragile surface” means a surface, including fittings, that would be liable to fail if a person's weight were to be applied to it in reasonably foreseeable circumstances;

“ladder” includes a fixed ladder and a stepladder;

“line” includes rope, chain or webbing;

“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;

“scaffold” means any temporary structure, including its supporting components, whether fixed, suspended or mobile, that is used—

(a) for supporting employees and materials, or

(b) to gain access to any structure,

and includes a working platform, a working stage, a gangway, a run and a ladder or step-ladder (other than an independent ladder or step-ladder that does not form part of such a structure), together with any guard-rail, toe-board or other such safeguard and all fixings thereon, but does not include—

(i) lifting equipment, or

(ii) a structure used only to support another structure or equipment (including lifting equipment),

and “scaffolding” shall be construed accordingly;

“supporting structure” means any structure used for the purpose of supporting a working platform and includes any plant used for that purpose;

“work at height” means work in any place, including a place—

(a) in the course of obtaining access to or egress from any place, except by a staircase in a permanent place of work, or

(b) at or below ground level,

from which, if measures required by this Part were not taken, an employee could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury and any reference to carrying out work at height includes obtaining access to or egress from such place while at work;

“work equipment” means any machine, appliance, apparatus, tool or installation for use at work (whether exclusively or not) and includes anything to which Regulations 101 to 114 apply;

“working platform” means any platform used as a place of work or as a means of access to or egress from a place of work, including any scaffold, suspended scaffold, cradle, mobile platform, trestle, gangway, gantry and stairway that is so used.

(2) Any reference in this Part to the keeping of a copy of a report or plan includes reference to it being kept in a form in which it is—

(a) capable of being reproduced as a printed copy when required, and

(b) secure from loss or unauthorised interference.