Bernard Burns, director of Chichester masons CWO, says it has cost the company £40,000 to comply with Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental requirements after cases of Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS) were reported among his masons.

And they are on-going costs. CWO have had to determine the vibration levels of the tools they use and now record every hour the masons spend on the banker and their vibration exposure levels. Anyone joining the firm has to fill in a health questionnaire and annual health checks have been introduced.

The company have installed central heating in the workshop and supply warm water for rubbing up the stone. They have provided their masons with protective clothing and worked with manufacturers on the redesign of chisels.

"In terms of the action plan, the Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental Executive nearly shut us down," says Bernard.

He adds: "What\'s happening to us is going to happen to the rest of the industry. I don\'t believe masons have any idea of the responsibility they have. Probably more than 90% of our industry doesn\'t record HAVS, or injuries in general, properly."

He hopes his experiences will help other masonry companies to start to comply with the law without incurring the level of costs CWO has faced by publishing through Stone Federation Great Britain a document that includes the results of vibration tests on tools and a sample action plan.

The Federation put £5,000 towards CWO\'s costs of producing the document, which they intend to recoup by selling copies to other masonry companiesï. They say it could save other companies many thousands of pounds in consultancy fees alone.

Bernard says CWO asked for the help of the Stone Federation because they felt they were bench-marking the stone industry.

And there is a warning. Although manufacturers have been required for more than 10 years to test their tools for vibration, the results published are often much better than the results achieved in the tests carried out by CWO, says Bernard.

Getting tools tested to discover their vibration levels and drawing up a proper action plan to deal with the consequences has taken a lot longer, required a lot more effort, and cost a lot more than Bernard had anticipated when the process started 18 months ago.

That was before Control of Vibration at Work Regulations came into force on 6 July this year. For the first time, those regulations impose statutory limits on exposure to vibration. At 2.5m/s A(8) - a level to which practically all masons using pneumatic tools will be exposed - health surveillance has to be introduced. It is illegal to expose people to levels of vibration above 5m/s2 A(8).

The HSE has said the regulations simply strengthen a position that already existed requiring employers not to put their employees at risk. It is allowing companies five years\' grace to comply with the regulations, but expects to see moves in the right direction before then and will take action where such moves are not made.

The HSE investigated CWO after the company had reported three HAVS incidents, as they are required to do under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases & Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (Riddor).

"We were very close at one point in a meeting to the HSE putting an improvement notice on us," says Bernard. "We said the shop would shut and the work would be pushed elsewhere. They accepted that. We set out very clearly in a document when the changes necessary would be put in place."

CWO do make the point that complying with the HSE requirements has increased their overheads, which will have to be reflected in prices.

*To order a copy of the HAVS document contact Jane Buxey at Stone Federation. Tel: 01303 856123.

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