Safety packs > Excavations and buried services

Excavations and buried services

Anyone digging trenches, laying drainage or working near buried electricity, gas, water, sewer or fibre services.

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The hazard

A cubic metre of soil can weigh more than 1.5 tonnes. Every year people are killed or seriously injured by collapses and falling material in excavations, and buried services are struck while digging. Those are the risks this pack deals with.

The pack covers preventing collapse with battering, benching, shoring or a trench box installed as the dig progresses rather than afterwards, identifying buried services with plans, a cable avoidance tool and safe digging practice together, inspection by a competent person at the start of every shift and after any event likely to affect the strength or stability of the excavation, and safe access, egress, spoil and barrier placement.

The law that applies

What is in the pack

One hazard, done completely, for the whole firm.

Implementation guidethe legal position and the order to do it in
Risk assessmentevery hazard and control, ready to make site-specific
Safe system of workthe one to put up where the work happens
Inspection and monitoring recordpre-use checks and periodic review
Training delivery packthe session your own supervisor delivers
Theory test candidate paperblank, to be answered in ink
Practical assessment recordon your machine or task, on your site
Written authorisationnames the person and the equipment or task
Toolbox talkswith attendance sheets
Register and refresher trackerturns a one off into a system
One document held back

The pack also has a theory test answer key. It is supplied separately to the employer, not published in the pack itself, so the test stays a genuine assessment when your own supervisor marks it.

An optional verified certificate per person

For when a customer, principal contractor or insurer wants third-party evidence.

You assess your own people in-house using the pack, and send PHW the completed records. PHW checks the records and, where they hold up, issues a certificate carrying a QR code that resolves to a live verification page. The certificate states plainly that the assessment was carried out in-house and verified by PHW, recording PHW's verification of that in-house assessment; records that are too thin are rejected rather than certified.

Your trade

Construction and civils

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Real cases

HSE prosecutions in this line of work.

Construction and civils · Banstead

Appledorn Developments Limited and T Vaughan Limited fined £1,150,000 after a worker was buried and killed in an unsupported trench collapse

£1,150,000 + £40,000 costs · 2026-09-09

An unsupported trench collapsed and buried a worker under two tonnes of soil, causing fatal injuries.

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Construction and civils · Ince (near Wigan)

Jim Yates & Sons Limited fined £20,000 after a dumper truck overturned into an unprotected excavation

£20,000 + £4,824 costs · 2026-07-14

A dumper truck was driven into an unprotected excavation and overturned after the company had told workers not to wear seat belts (the driver was thrown out and suffered crushing leg injuries).

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Construction and civils · Vant Road, London

A construction company director in London sentenced after a worker was pinned when an excavation wall collapsed

No fine (custodial/other sentence) + £4,608 costs · sentencing date not stated

An unplanned and unmonitored excavation collapsed in the rain, pinning a worker against the wall and causing life-changing injuries.

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