Thursday - April 01, 2010

Needed at once, urgent, FOUR (as in 4) men and a very large machine to move one mattress.

AWARD TO: Bolton Metropolitan Council.

Cue the fan-fare for this one ......... what’s happened to ppl ?  why are they getting dumber?  can’t ALL be liberals for gosh sake.
Take a look.

Council officials said they could not remove a mattress dumped on an embankment after claiming they needed four men and a JCB to do the job.

By Paul Byrne 31/03/2010

Zealots’ daft safety ruling

Householders in Little Lever, near Bolton, Greater Manchester, had assumed that the mattress would be promptly removed by one or two workers after it was reported to the local authority.

But they had failed to take into account the health and safety requirements of Bolton Metropolitan Council.

Have you ever wondered how many people it takes to move a dumped mattress? Five, according to health and safety council jobsworths - plus a three-hour risk assessment by an executive support officer, a 1.7-tonne JCB and one week to set it all up.

Bolton town hall penpushers laid down the rules after an old mattress was abandoned on an embankment. One councillor, Sean Hornby, got so fed up that he and pal Paul Richardson, 63, carried it away themselves.

Sean, 43, said: “It’s health and safety gone mad. The policies are barmy. I’m not saying it was an easy job but it took us four minutes.” Yet an official had earlier emailed him to say: “After carrying out the risk assessment, it is not possible to remove the mattress manually and it requires a JCB.”

A council spokesman defended the ridiculous ruling and said: “An officer carried out a visual assessment and decided the most appropriate course was… mechanical equipment.”

Baffled Paul added: “Risk assessment has taken over from common sense.”

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 04/01/2010 at 12:36 PM   
Filed Under: • Stoopid-People •  
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