Construction phase plan template

What regulation 12 asks the plan to cover

Under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, regulation 12, the principal contractor draws up a construction phase plan before the site is set up, where there is more than one contractor. Regulation 15(5) puts that duty on the contractor when there is only one. Regulation 15(6) says that plan must fulfil regulation 12(2).

In plain terms, a useful plan covers five things. The project: the address, the work, and the dates, so the rest of the plan is about this job. The management arrangements: who is in charge, how the other contractors are told, and how someone stops the work. The site rules: how people get in, and how the public is kept out. The specific risk controls: where the work includes a particular risk in Schedule 3, the plan sets out the specific measures. Welfare: what toilets, washing, drinking water, and a place to rest this site will actually have.

Schedule 3 is the list of particular risks, not the welfare list. It includes a fall from height where the risk is particularly aggravated by the work or the place, burial or engulfment, drowning, work near high-voltage power lines, and the use of explosives, among others. Welfare is Schedule 2: toilets, washing, drinking water, a place to change, and a place to rest. The client’s arrangements have to include those facilities (regulation 4). The principal contractor has to provide them throughout the construction phase (regulation 13). Where there is only one contractor, regulation 15 puts that Schedule 2 duty on that contractor. The plan should say which facilities this site will have before anyone starts.

Regulation 12 also requires the plan to be kept up to date so it still matches the work. Filling in this template does not do that for a real project.

A short construction phase plan example

This example is draft – awaiting competent review. It is a sketch of a plan for a terraced-house kitchen refurbishment, not a plan for a real address.

The work is a strip-out and a new kitchen over two weeks. Three contractors: a builder, a kitchen fitter, and an electrician. The occupier lives in the rest of the house. The builder is the principal contractor and writes the plan before the kitchen is stripped. The fitter and the electrician read it, and their own RAMS, before they start.

Site rules for this sketch: the occupier stays out of the kitchen; there is one route through the hall; gas and electricity in the strip area are isolated by a competent person before the strip; the skip stays in the marked bay and not across the pavement.

The particular risks in this sketch are a coating that might be asbestos, live services in the walls, and a heavy worktop. The specific controls sit in the strip-out RAMS and the worktop RAMS. The plan says which trade is in the room on which day, so they are not stripping and cutting at the same time.

Welfare in this sketch: the house toilet and wash basin stay available, with drinking water. If the kitchen is the only water, a temporary supply is agreed before day one. That sentence does not decide that those facilities are enough.