WORKPLACE SAFETY L


Mark James of Thorworld Industries comments on how regulations relevant to loading platforms can be applied in practice to improve safety and keep operations reliable across the equipment lifecycle.


oading bays concentrate risk because they bring vehicles, people and moving equipment into the same working space while conditions can change rapidly from one moment to the next. Trailer heights vary, docking positions are not identical and the pace of work can rise quickly during peaks. In that environment, documentation is essential, but it only protects people when it is implemented consistently as the site evolves. In the UK, transportation and storage was the third highest category for workrelated fatal injuries in 2024/25 with figures approximately 2.5 times higher than average. While these figures are not limited to loading bays, they demonstrate how routinely risk is concentrated where vehicles, people and handling activity intersect, and why compliance measures need to be designed into operations rather than left to informal routines.


WHERE COMPLIANCE SLIPS IN PRACTICE Most organisations can point to a safety policy and a set of procedures. The gap tends to


CLOSING THE COMPLIANCE GAPS IN INDUSTRIAL LOADING BAY OPERATIONS


appear where those no longer match how work is actually done, or when they are relied on in place of practical controls, training, supervision and reinforcement on the floor. Health and safety guidance from the HSE links failures and gaps in procedure to recurring incidents, and lists non- compliance as a ‘deliberate’ safety violation. This does not mean that they are the result of malicious intention but rather that they are avoidable and should have been mitigated against. Written procedures on their own do not prevent incidents. In environments where heavy loads, moving vehicles and mechanical equipment are part of routine operations, there is always a level of risk to manage. That is why documentation alone is not enough and should be backed by a culture in which safety is understood, applied consistently and supported by the way the site is designed and supervised. Where that culture is weak, procedures are more likely to be bypassed, informal practice takes over and small gaps in compliance become normalised over time. Compliance drift tends to follow a familiar pattern. Marginal equipment condition is accepted because it still functions. Temporary measures become routine. Small deviations from the routine are repeated without immediate consequence. Over time, the loading bay can end up ‘drifting’ by operating outside the assumptions the controls and equipment were designed around.


THE REGULATORY BASELINE


For loading platforms and associated equipment in use in Great Britain, the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) are


10 SUMMER/AUTUMN 2026 | INDUSTRIAL COMPLIANCE


more exacting than they are sometimes treated in practice. The regulation does not just ask whether equipment was suitable when it was purchased or installed. It requires that equipment remains suitable, maintained and, where deterioration could create danger, inspected accordingly. In a loading bay environment, that is an important distinction because operating conditions rarely stand still. What begins as a compliant set-up can gradually become a compromised one if inspection and maintenance do not keep pace with wear, changing traffic and altered working patterns.


That is why the wider maintenance picture matters. A 2025 UK report found that maintenance schedule compliance averages only 68 per cent, while 47 per cent regularly defer important preventive maintenance. Read against PUWER, that is not just a maintenance issue, it is a compliance issue, because the regulation assumes that deterioration will be identified and acted on before it creates danger, and that businesses can demonstrate through inspection and maintenance records that risks were picked up early and addressed in time.


Another regulation that comes into play regularly in loading bay operations is the Work at Height Regulations 2005, because open dock edges, gaps and changes in level between the bay and the vehicle can all create a fall risk. The compliance gap tends to open when that risk is treated as too minor to worry about, whether because the height does not look significant, the task will only take a moment, or it is seen as a


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