UKC

I visit many different climbing walls as my work takes me round the country and I'm intrigued by the methods climbing walls use to set routes.
When setting routes the employees of the climbing wall are working at height and the Working at Height Regulations apply. Yet I see route setters working in a way that would have them kicked off any well managed work site. Exclusion zones are set up with bits of old rope and then generally ignored. Route setters take large holds out of bags and buckets directly above their colleagues with neither of them wearing a safety helmet.
I wonder how far a hold or allen bolt would bounce when dropped onto a rubber crumb floor from 10metres?
Just a common sense appraisal would tell you the barriers are insufficient, helmets need to be worn and exclusion zones maintained.
Entrance fees to walls are expensive enough, it's only a matter of time before an incident from route setting causes serious injury and the chances of insurance premiums going up are high. There will also be the costs of the 'knee jerk' reaction where better barriers are purchased and staff sent on courses.
In short climbing walls across the country need to get their working practices in line with other industries that work at height.

In reply to mikephilrob:

If you think the stuff that goes on inside is dangerous, you really don't want to know about the poor practices people outside engage in!

In reply to mikephilrob:


Are you sure about that? There is a specific exemption in the legislation for climbing, and there is nothing to suggest that indoor walls are not part of that exemption. The legislation specifically defines "climbing" as including man-made structures.

In reply to MarkJH:
Sorry Mark but WaH regs are quite clear, as the individual route setter is actually involved in a work task regardless of what structure . I occasionaly do Geotechnical work on Rockfaces and WaH applies.

As somebody that has a bit of experience of industrial ropework and safety legislation I have seen all sorts of downright dangerous and incompetent practices at walls by route setters.

In reply to mikephilrob:

I dropped a T-bar Allen key from about 7m and it bounced best part of 3m back up, as I almost brained someone setting on an adjacent panel I didn't try to repeat the experiment.

I've had a strap on a bag full of jugs break which is probably the nearest I've come to a serious injury while setting, not sure the wall would have coughed up for a haul bag with rated slings though?

In reply to muppetfilter:


I realise that, but it is more to do with the activity rather than the structure isn't it? The regulations don't (for example) apply to mountain guides, so I'm not entirely sure what the cutoff is. Maybe the distinction is that if you are actively guiding or instructing then they don't apply. That could mean that route setting doesn't fall under the exemption...

In reply to MarkJH:

The advice I received was that route setting definitely counts as working at height.

In reply to Reach>Talent:


OK thanks. I also found this, which agrees with you.
http://www.technicaloutdoorsolutions.co.uk/2012/10/working-at-height-regula...

In reply to MarkJH:

Hi Mark, what you have to look at is that for guides the work activity is moving over rock/ ice etc. as safely as possible with clients . In route setting the activity is screwing and unscrewing bolts, the use of a rope and harness is one of several methods of getting to the work location and thats why it falls under WaH regs.

In reply to MarkJH:

Erm... they haven't done very thorough research in your linked article as they misname LOLER, IRATA and PAT testing .

In reply to muppetfilter:


And from the last paragraph,

"These regulations are as much a legal requirement as the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) and should be as standard as having a PAC test done upon electrical equipment"

Err, except that PAT testing isn't actually a legal requirement.

In reply to mikephilrob:

Believe it or not things are much better than in the past and you are right WAH Regs most definitely apply to those setting on or maintaining Artificial Climbing Structures. The Association of British Climbing Walls have been working for some time to create better awareness and standardisation across UK Walls. The advent of the Routesetting Association and their Training Courses has been a huge (much needed IMHO) step forwards too. I work in and visit a lot of walls and over the past 20 years I've seen some big improvements but its still easy to spot the walls clinging to their old ways and like the sort of work site you are probably familiar with auditing needs to be ongoing to ensure short cuts don't get taken or old habits return after changes in practise.

In reply to mikephilrob:

All the climbing walls I've been seem to know what they're doing and some of them, like The Foundry, have a very long track record.

I've never felt unsafe at a wall when routesetting has been taking place. What might appear like common sense from an outsider's perspective is not going to be the same as someone who does that work regularly. Most, probably all, routesetters these days are extremely good and very experienced climbers. I think if they thought they needed to wear helmets or better barriers etc. I think they'd have figured that out.

However if you're concerned when routesetting is taking place when you're climbing a simple solution is simply to climb further away from where the routesetting is going on. Or perhaps you should wear a helmet?

In reply to MarkJH:

The exemption for mountain guides, climbing and caving instructors etc that was in the 2005 regulations was only temporary and was removed by an amendment that was introduced seperately in 2007. It is a little bit academic though, in the sense that the amendment also conceded that existing good practice was good enough as an "equivalent level of safety" to the more proscriptive stuff that applies to other work.

The "explanatory memorandum" attached to the amended regulations covers a bit of the background to all that, if you can be arsed have a look at chapter 7 here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2007/114/memorandum/contents

(There's also a ton of discussion about it at the time archived on here.)

In the run up to 2005 it looked like the introduction of the regulations was going to be an absolute disaster for mountain guides etc. There was some fairly frantic lobbying involved in getting that temporary exemption in place, and it was all a bit of a result really when the regulations as they were eventually applied turned out to be so sensible. (All of which is irrelevant to route-setting on an artificial wall, which was always "Work at Height" in the more conventional industrial sense, as above.)

In reply to mikephilrob:
Regardless of what is and isn't legislation, if a serious accident occurs then the HSE will come and investigate. If the centre's risk assessment/method statement states that it should be done a certain way, they will ask why wasn't it being carried out that way? Why wasn't the route setter supervised and told to conform to RA? Why weren't they inducted and informed of the rules/safety measures in place? If helmets/safety measures aren't in place, why aren't they?

If the route setter isn't conforming to the rules then they also share the blame...

I would have thought that the risk of falling objects would be enough to include it as an item in the risk assessment, and the obvious preventative measure would be rated equipment, training and the obvious PPE/safety measure would be hard exclusion zone/hard hat zone (taking into account bounce) and helmets all-round? Im sure most will agree that in a court it would be difficult to argue your way out of putting these items in a risk assessment.

In reply to MarkJH:


they even apply when responding to emergencies.
climbing and descending they are not needed.working from a ladder requires it

In reply to mark s:

I'm glad this has sparked some good discussion. The very fact that someone has come forward to tell of their near misses when route setting is indicative of what goes on nationwide.
There should be a proper risk assessment and a briefing that is signed by all staff involved in route setting. What I have seen and heard tells me that this is not happening.
The regulations can be summarised quite simply:
'... must plan and mitigate all reasonably foreseeable risk...'
The fact we can predict dropped objects bouncing and potentially hitting people on the head means substantial barriers, exclusion zones and head protection are a must.