NASS' Health & Safety Committee have recently released guidance on Banding Standards. The document also includes guidance on securing loads to vehicles, vehicle suitability and recommended minimum banding standards. This document, which covers the banding of Strip Products, is the first part of what will eventually be a comprehensive document which will also cover General Products and Long Products.

Contained within this Newsletter is advice on the long awaited publication of HSG246: Safety in the storage and handling of steel and other metal stock, and also the publication by the HSE of Delivering safely: co-operating to prevent workplace vehicle accidents. The Newsletter also contains guidance on protective head gear.

A comprehensive HSE publication produced following consultation with NASS

This document offers practical advice to everyone involved in the delivery and unloading of steel, and will be particularly useful for stockholders and steel users who receive steel at their premises, as well as those delivering it. It highlights the planning that should take place to ensure that steel can be safely unloaded on site, as well as the practical precautions necessary during the unloading procedure. The information in the document is based on joint work by NASS and UK Steel (representing the steel producers and steel converters in the UK). The HSE and Wolverhampton MBC (representing Local Authorities in the Local Authority Partnership Scheme with NASS) were consulted during the preparation of the guidance and endorse it as good industry practice which updates and supercedes the information in HSE guidance "Safe Unloading of Steel Products" (INDG313).

A Press Release from the HSE giving details of a fatality that occured whilst unloading a steel beam. NASS has been advised that HSE and Local Authority inspectors will be looking at (un)loading steel at steel stockholders and at delivery sites later in 2007. NASS and UK Steel worked together to produce a document "Safe Delivery and Unloading of Steel Products", which is available from the Health & Safety, Publications Page of NASS' website.