This week we published an updated version of our Health, Safety and Environment Standard. This is issued to all our designers and contractors and sets out how we work in partnership to ensure the health and safety of everyone involved in the project and make sure we protect the environment.

Health and safety has always been the top priority for us, which is why the Standard was originally published in the summer of 2006, long before the ODA even gained possession of the land on the Olympic Park. But it needs to be a live document, so it’s consulted on and checked every year to keep it up-to-date, not only with legislation and our other policies, but also to match our ambitions. Ambitions for a healthy and safe workforce with over 3,000 workers on site.

One of the Olympic Park site workers:

I’ve also been working with the Environment team so the Standard is not just about the health and safety of the workforce – it sets out how this project will follow the highest environmental standards and how potential impacts resulting from the construction activity will be minimised.

One of the main changes to the document is more detail about the Olympic Park health programme for workers. There’s an established medical centre on site with highly qualified nurses who monitor the health of the workers on the site, all of whom have health checks. So cholesterol tests, healthy eating campaigns and protection from skin cancer are all parts of the current approach.

Workers visit the medical centre to have their safety critical worker health check, or call in for some advice - last time I was there a nasty insect bite was being treated! Bear in mind that we’ve been working on this site for nearly three years with over 5.5 million hours worked in the past year alone.

The Standard and the brilliant way that the ODA’s requirements are being met by our contractors have combined to make a great start to our construction programme.