What price to Dial Before You
Dig?You paid £99 +
charges that some utilities made for their plans.
Within 12 to 15 working days over 50 different service owners had
responded to your Enquiry.
Your Planning Pack has all the plans, Not-Affected statements,
charges audit and is certificated.
Click here to get a
quotation from our Safety Centre.
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Dial
Before You Dig for Business |
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Situation |
Legal
Position |
Financial
Implications to you |
| You used Dial
Before You Dig to research a site you were considering
buying or planning works for. |
There is no
legal obligation in the UK to use Dial Before You Dig - but there is no
legal recourse to the seller or the contractor that you engaged
if you find the site or works are unviable due to utility presences.
Finding out about any buried
services at any site is part of your diligence when
considering buying a site or planning works. It is far better to find out about these
services at the beginning - and therefore the costs you are
facing - than to go through the expensive process of buying
a site or designing and
commissioning works only to find that the site is actually
unviable. |
You paid £99 +
utility charges and found out:
Best Case: There are no
services running underneath the site.
Worse Case: The
site has several utility services running underneath it.
Price of site + cost of service diversion + cost of your
works = cost of the site or works to you.
Moving a major gas main is
£10,000+, major pipelines £50,000+, telecoms £5,000+. |
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Dial
Before You Dig for Planning |
| Situation |
Legal
Position |
Financial
Implications to you |
| You used Dial
Before You Dig to research a site you are planning works
at. |
CDM Regulations define you as 'the Client' and place
obligations on you and the contractor for planning for
safety. This includes taking all 'reasonable steps' to
define hazards and provide details to operators, including
existing plant and services at the location.
Civilly, you are liable for
any costs incurred by asset owners to repair or otherwise
take steps to protect their services that you endanger or
damage, and have unlimited liability for HSE fines and HSE
Notices, and unlimited liability for civil claims for injury
or death. |
You paid £99 +
utility charges to contact all known asset owners and
receive their plans and responses.
You can now
consider any further steps you should take, e.g. have a
survey done to clarify the situation at the site.
This information forms a major
part of your Safety Plan, required under CDM Regulations. |
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The costs of not using Dial Before
You Dig
You thought that £99 + utility charges
was too expensive.
You relied on old information, assumptions, word of mouth and good
fortune.
You do not know for sure if there are any services at the
site, who owns them, or where they are.
|
|
Not using
Dial Before You Dig for Business |
| Situation |
Legal
Position |
Financial
Implication to you. |
| You bought a
site to develop or planned works on an existing site but did not research it using Dial Before
You Dig when bidding or planning. When you get on-site
you find that utility services are present. |
You cannot
build over, reposition or endanger existing utility services or pipelines and you
are responsible for the full costs of re-routing of any
existing services even if you own the land that they are
already in. |
You saved £99 +
utility charges in the research stage but now you have to budget for
moving each service, and some may not be able to
be repositioned at all, either because the owner is
unwilling to move it or more likely that the cost of moving
it is too expensive for you. Major repositioning can take up
to 5 years depending on the magnitude of work and planning
schedule of the owner, which of course are reflected in the cost to you
in money and time.
Your 'bargain' site may
well prove unviable, or the money you spent designing your
business-critical development may have been wasted. Moving a major gas
main is £10,000+, major pipelines £50,000+, telecoms
£5,000+. |
|
Not using
Dial Before You Dig for Planning |
| Situation |
Legal
Position |
Financial
Implication to you. |
| You commission
works without using Dial Before You Dig. When the
contractor commences work under your instructions they
uncover services, although they do not damage them. |
As Client or
Works Promoter you are responsible under
CDM and other HSE Regulations for the safety of those
undertaking works under your instruction and for protection
of existing services.
You cannot assign these responsibilites to contractors or
agents. |
You saved £99 +
utility charges in the planning stage but now the contractor
will either cease work and require you as Client to provide
the appropriate plans (@3 weeks - during which time you may
be liable for contractor stand-down costs), or may be
persuaded to continue
working subject to full acceptance by you of any responsibility
for any damages - and the works will take a lot longer due
to hand-digging. NB - a good proportion of damages
happens when the plant is already uncovered.
Repairing a service is often
even more expensive than having it repositioned. |
|
or... |
| Situation |
Legal
Position |
Financial
Implication to you. |
| You commission
works without using Dial Before You Dig. When the
contractor commences work under your instructions they
cut through services. |
As Client or
Works Promoter you are responsible under
CDM and other HSE Regulations for the safety of those
undertaking works, and are civilly liable for any damages to
existing services that occur under your instruction.
You cannot assign these
responsibilites to contractors or agents. |
Best Scenario:
The service you damaged did not injure the
operator. Work out who owns it and how to contact them, get them to come and
repair it, expect a bill in the thousands for repairs, your
own work
may have to stop and you face a possible claim for loss of revenue
of the service owner.
Irate at not being contacted for plans or discussions,
expect the service owner to take maximum compensation from
you and be watchful of you in the future.
You may still be reported to HSE and be subject to an
HSE
Prosecution. You can either pay the costs out of
your revenue or claim on your insurance and send your
premium skywards, and could find yourself / your company
named if not shamed.
Worse
Scenario: Hitting the service injured or killed the
operator, and only you can decide how you would feel about
your part in this
situation. But the law
is very clear about who is responsible and why. As well as all the issues mentioned above
about repairing damage if you are negligent in your CDM
duties you face a strong possibility of criminal charges
which can result in jail sentences for individual directors
/ owners, an unlimited
HSE fine, unlimited civil claims for death / personal
injury, a possible
HSE Notice, even possible revoking of licenses.You
either pay these costs from your revenue or claim on your
insurance and send your premium skywards. You may even
find you / your company cited as a Case Study or news
report, and of course you cannot assign an agent to spend
jail time for you. |
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Want to reconsider the value of Dial Before You Dig? |
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