Health and safety (or is that elf’n safety?) is frequently the butt of jokes in this country even if some of the stories surrounding it are nothing more than myths.
But today’s revelation that roadside litter collections have been suspended in Northampton for more than two months to allow a full health and safety review to be carried out does seem both excessive and mystifying.
Rewind several weeks to when a single litter picker was regrettably involved in an unspecified accident on the A45. The immediate reaction was to cease all roadside litter picking to allow a full health and safety review to be done, but as one green campaigner points out it is not exactly “rocket science” and certainly shouldn’t take eight weeks.
The consequences are twofold: One is that litter has piled up on the roadsides and looks pretty awful at some entry points to the town. And secondly, once again, health and safety gets a bad press, aka elf ‘n safety gone mad?).
H&S is there for a reason and thank goodness it is, but sometimes it can seem like an absurdly long time to reach common sense, workable solutions.
Of course we hope the H&S review is effective, just as we hope less litter is dropped by all British roadsides. But that’s probably a debate for another day...