Volunteers work all over the country on all sorts of restoration schemes – some big, some small, some incredibly ambitious. Health and safety is something that will need to be managed as part of any practical restoration project. 

This toolkit provides hints, tips and advice to create a positive safety culture on your site, as well as practical resources such as templates for project plans and example risk assessments.

We all want our restoration sites to be safe places for our volunteers but why do accidents happen? Ultimately accidents are primarily caused by poor behaviour. There are many examples of poor behaviour that don’t result in injuries – but these merely reinforce poor behaviours (it won’t happen to me). Changing our behaviours will result in less accidents.

In our experience the most important bit of improving health and safety isn’t clever documents or fancy equipment or new policies. It’s about involving everyone. Yes, it needs strong clear leadership but health and safety is for everyone, so it’s got to engage at ALL levels.

One of the things that really makes a restoration scheme stand out to us is a positive health & safety culture. Watch our video on Creating your own Culture of Safety