You should gather and pass on all pre-construction information you have to your designers and contractors at the earliest opportunity. It’s best to arrange for a site survey to be conducted by your chosen Principal Designer, to ensure that all the information is accurate.

Not only will this information help with the planning of the project, but it will also advise all duty holders of any risks that need to be countered in the design, construction and future use of the facilities.

If you’re using more than one contractor, your Principal Designer is actually obligated to help put this information together with you. You’ll also need to agree with your Principal Designer what information will go into the health and safety file, which ensures other parties can use the facilities safely.

If you have other contractors or in-house contractors that offer facilities management or similar support on a fixed-term contract basis, the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor must involve these parties in the design, planning and management of the construction work.

Depending on if certain thresholds are met, you may need to notify the HSE (Health & Safety Executive) with details of the project that is to take place. For any project that is due to take longer than 30 working days – or that will require over 20 workers at one time and will exceed 500 ‘worker days’ – you will need to notify them.

The best way to do this is to fill out the online form on their website (F10 Notification of a construction project form). This way, the form is automatically sent to the HSE on completion, making it the most convenient and simple way to notify them.

As the client, it’s your duty and obligation to ensure that all pre-construction phase health and safety management arrangements are being implemented correctly, and that the Principal Designer is carrying out their agreed duties.

A great way to ensure that your mezzanine floor installation or fit out project is progressing to your agreed expectations and meeting legal requirements, is to arrange regular project meetings. These should continue into the construction phase right through to the completion of your project.

Before any construction work begins, one of the most important tasks your Principal Contractor must complete is the creation of a construction phase plan. This must be written down and you should ask them to talk you through it in order to understand how the plan is project specific.

The plan should accommodate all the pre-construction information you and your Principal Designer provided regarding the site-specific health and safety risks. For further information on the construction phase plan and what should be included, check out the industry guideline for Principal Contractors.

As part of your CDM client duties, you’re required to ensure that suitable welfare facilities (such as toilets and water) are in place and ready for when the work starts. If you have existing welfare facilities on site, you can agree that workers can use them while the project is ongoing.

Alternatively, you can confirm with the sole/Principal Contractor that they’re providing these facilities in the form of portable toilets. 

During the project you must meet your responsibility to make sure that the arrangements for managing health and safety that have been put in place are working effectively, and that the Principal Contractor is complying with their duties.

We suggest two ways to help ensure this. 

1. Conduct regular face-to-face progress meetings to discuss the project as a whole. 
2. To further prove that you’re carrying out your CDM duties, ask the Principal Contractor to provide you with written updates.

As the end of the project is approaching, you need to discuss the plans for the handover of the mezzanine facilities or new warehouse/office fit out to you with your Principal Contractor. Depending on the nature of your project, it could be a good idea to conduct a phased handover.

This is where you gain access to areas of the facilities once the work on them is complete. This allows you to check that the health and safety measures are in place in those areas as the project progresses.

It’s essential that you receive the completed health and safety file from the Principal Designer on completion of the project (or from the Principal Contractor if the designer’s involvement ended before the end of the project).

The structure, content and format of this crucial file should have been agreed between yourself and the Principal Designer at the outset of the project. The file must include all information required to ensure the health and safety of anyone involved in any future works on the building/structure. Those works include any further construction work, demolition works, cleaning and maintenance.

Before you take possession of the file, make sure that all the information contained has been reviewed and updated correctly. We advise that you conduct a meeting with the appropriate duty holder that has passed it to you to discuss the contents and become aware of any key risks.

Once the project is complete and the health and safety file has been handed over to you, you must ensure that the file is stored in a durable format such as an electronic/digital file, physical/paper file or on a film.

To reduce any risk of losing timely access to this essential information, we recommend that you store the health and safety file separately from the building maintenance manual. In the event that responsibility of the premises is handed on to a new owner (or possibly shared), the health and safety file must be provided to every new owner or leaseholder.

You must provide clear instructions to them as to the nature of the file. You also have a responsibility to regularly revisit, revise and update the file when required, and must also ensure that any party that needs it to ensure they comply with health and safety law are able to access it.

We can make your mezzanine floor installation or office/warehouse fit out project hassle-free, by using our vast experience in acting as both principal designer and contractor on numerous projects. At Nexus Workspace, we make complying with HSE law nice and simple, while also delivering the best possible solution for your individual needs.

We make everything easier for you. We provide a complete mezzanine floor solution from site survey through to the completion and handover of your new facilities. Our expert team of designers, project managers and construction team will guide you through every step of your mezzanine floor installation or fit out project.

We have the strictest building regulations and health and safety practices in mind when we design and implement your new warehouse mezzanine, office mezzanine or fit out project. The safety of all involved is at the forefront of everything we do throughout the process, and you can be assured that all the correct procedures will be carried out during your project.