Mr Cameron. This is why your big society won’t work.
A MASSIVE village litter pick has been binned after organisers were swamped by red tape.
The planned community event to celebrate World Environment Day in Otford was scuppered by health and safety issues.
Villagers were lined up to clean the recreation ground on Sunday, but their plans were cut short after the parish council's insurance providers, AON Corporation, insisted every participant would need a high-visibility jacket, protective gloves and a litter-picking claw.
What I can’t understand is that it’s in the recreation ground, so why are Hi vis jackets required?
And why the need for this?
They also insisted that among the volunteers one should be a trained first aider with a mobile phone in case of emergency.
Does this mean that the lone early morning dog walker will have to have first aid training?
And the usual claptrap from the Righteous.
A spokesman for AON said: "The list of requirements for an event of this nature is extensive but necessary.
"It is for the safety of participants that we make these requests, however stringent they may be, and therefore they must be adhered to."
Now if I’d been the villagers I would have gone ahead anyway. I’ve not heard yet that there is an offence of “Illegal litter picking”, or “Failure to display a high visibility jacket”
I might be wrong.
Seeing as Dave's great repeal of stupid Neo Labour laws hasn't actually repealed any stupid Neo Labour laws, then it's highly likely that "Failure to display a high visibility jacket" is a criminal offence, punishable by 12 months in the pokey with Big Leon.
ReplyDeleteIts rent-seeking lawyers, just as much as the 'elf an' safety Nazis.
ReplyDeleteInsurers enforce this idiocy because they are scared of being sued by lawyers on the make.
Not much chance of our politicians righting that wrong when so many of them are m'learned friends.
This was the day after the Otford village fete, so there was plenty of rubbish to collect.
ReplyDeleteIt's usually put down to H&S political correctness, but that's not true - it's the bloody insurers driving this idiocy.
Individuals, not organised by any "official" group, can do whatsoever they like "at their own risk", as long as they accept there will be no compensation for any injuries incurred.
But why should you have insurance for a voluntary activity. On a recreation ground. Worried about being run down by a runaway mower.
ReplyDeleteIt's about time people took responsibility for their own actions.
After all they were only going to pick up rubbish.
I can see the insurer's view; a very large and undocumented number of people unknown to them have gathered and will be walking around picking up an unknown range of objects in an unsupervised manner. I'd do anything I could to avoid that risk, myself.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, if they had covered it, I'd wouldn't now be commenting on this blog, I'd be concocting my story about the cut to my finger from a bit of rubbish that swelled up and went really nasty, that'll be £500 please.
The real failure here is the utter lack of anyone with a spine who was willing and able to stand up and shout "OK everyone, you're not insured, take care, be sensible, bear that in mind."
So the real failure is indeed a Council one, not one by the lawyers, the elf-n-safety clipboards, or the insurers.
Snivelling little rule-bound cowards; I've never liked Council staff.
I see that the Cheese Rolling event has still gone ahead (unofficially), despite being banned by the authorities. Just goes to show that it is possible to make a stand against officialdom, although in this case they weren't standing for very long...
ReplyDeleteThe boundahs should also have been required to wear hard hats.
ReplyDelete