Exclusion zone

A marked and enforced area around a hazard (a lift, an excavator's slew, a demolition, overhead work, a live service) that nobody enters while the hazard is present, other than those the method statement names.

An exclusion zone is isolation in the hierarchy of control: it keeps people away from the hazard rather than protecting them from it. Its size is set by the hazard (the slew radius of the excavator plus a margin, the fall zone below work at height, the swing of the load and the failure mode of the lift, the collapse zone of a structure being demolished, the exclusion distances from overhead lines), it is marked physically (barriers, not tape where plant is involved), it is signed, and it is enforced by the person in charge of the task, who stops the work if it is breached. Who may enter and under what conditions (the slinger-signaller during a lift, the banksman during an excavation) is written in the method statement.

The commonest failures are zones that exist on the drawing but not on the ground, zones marked with tape that people step over, and zones that shrink as the day goes on because the barriers are in the way. A zone that is breached by a delivery driver who was never told about it is the traffic management plan's failure as much as the zone's.

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