A very well attended meeting of over sixty members and guests held at The Players Golf Club, Codrington, heard Rob Pearce of the HSE give a talk entitled 'Quarry Management and Competency'. He began by referring to documents he had distributed to the audience. One was internal guidance on what Inspectors are looking for when they visit quarries. The other document outlined the issues to consider regarding the demonstration of competence as required under Regulation 9. Rob described some of the industries he was responsible for in the southwest and the hazards they posed, ranging from nuclear submarines to administering jabs to cattle. He pointed out that quarrying is the second-most dangerous industry after fishing and worse than agriculture, construction and shipbuilding.

With regards to competence he pointed out that three companies in the southwest had been issued with prohibition notices for not employing competent people. Using himself as an example he outlined his own competence based on his experience and qualifications. He described how an incident involving a fatality would be investigated and the options open to the police and HSE for prosecution.

He then discussed the contents of Schedule 1 - content of geotechnical assessments, and the importance of employing a geotechnical person who was right for your quarry and had a knowledge of blasting. He pointed out some of the deficiencies of site investigations particularly the lack of groundwater measurements and inadequate cross-sections.

The rest of his talk was devoted to the issue of matching bench height to the reach of the excavator at the face. He described how blasting may affect the stability of faces and the need to scale faces to clear them of loose material. He stated that 58% of flyrock incidents could be prevented by a machine scaling the face. He stressed the importance of building a suitable platform for a machine to stand on to ensure it did not tip over. He made the point that even with ROPS and FOPS cabs these alone were not sufficient to withstand impact from even modest-sized material falling from the face. He had evidence of hundreds of excavators damaged as a result of being struck by falling rocks.

Rob concluded his talk by highlighting the areas most likely to see enforcement by the HSE. These were competence of quarry designs, geotechnical specialists, quarry managers, explosives supervisors and those carrying out daily inspections.

The evening concluded with a comprehensive question and answer session.