Safety: The Regulations
When you embark on a home improvement project, such as installing a new kitchen, you’re not just enhancing your space—you’re also engaging with legal responsibilities under the Construction, Design and Management Regulations 2015. Fortunately, as a domestic client of Nicholas Hythe, these duties transfer to us, your main contractor, ensuring that your project is managed with the utmost attention to safety. Choosing a contractor with the right skills and experience is crucial. They are responsible for planning, managing, and monitoring the construction to ensure it is carried out safely. This not only minimises potential risks but also guarantees that your renovation will meet the highest standards of safety and quality. Whoever you pick for your project, please make sure to select a team that values your safety and satisfaction as much as you do.
Our commitment to safe systems of work
Nicholas Hythe is unapologetic in its commitment to safety both within our own business but also on site in clients’ homes. We have a wide range of regularly updated risk assessments and safe systems of work covering all aspects of the company’s business, including at both our premises, driving to and from clients’ homes and whilst on-site.
Our employees undergo regular training – provided by external consultants or in-house – to ensure that they’re not only safe whilst at work, but understand the need for safety in whatever role they perform
Recruitment & Employment checks
We have a detailed policy regarding the Recruitment & Employment of Ex-Offenders which we use non-discriminatorily to assess an applicant’s suitability for a position for which they’ve applied. We undertake criminal record checks (processed through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)), to comply fully with the code of practice and ensure we treat all applicants for positions fairly. As such, all employees who potentially meet with customers face-to-face, are required to undergo a DBS check so that clients may be reassured of the character of the people they’re letting into their homes
Safety starts before work begins
The design of your kitchen has to comply with the standards required by the Construction, Design and Management Regulations 2015. Every design is checked at least three times by at least two senior managers in our business. This not only ensures it will fit and that the correct parts are ordered but also that the resultant works proposed will be safe in the long-term and meet home insurers’ requirements.
On-site safety management
In order to comply with on-site requirements, the most important person in our team is the project manager. He is responsible for identifying and assessing the risks and liaising with the designers and contractors before and during every project, ensuring the design agreed is practical and can be implemented safely. Ours, Jim Marsh, has deep knowledge of the kitchen renovation safety requirements a project demands, having been responsible for building new homes in a previous role.
Jim is Construction Industry Training Board assessed, having taken and passed their demanding Site Management Safety Training Scheme. He’s also trained in asbestos awareness, having passed UKATA’s non-licensable work with asbestos course
For jobs where we’re asked to undertake building works we will also liaise with structural engineers and Building Control so that you can be reassured that the work is undertaken to the satisfaction of insurance providers
Contractor Safety
Most of our contractors have worked with us for many years, so we’re able to vouch for their knowledge, skills and experience to undertake the work we provide safely. And, where we appoint a new contractor, we ask them to complete a detailed questionnaire in order to assess and evaluate their safety management systems before allowing them to work on Nicholas Hythe sites.
This assessment requires them to complete a safety questionnaire is designed to validate that they have the necessary skills and qualifications, are fully certified, hold memberships of safety groups and/or trade associations and that they have the required insurances.They’re are also required to prove that any required qualifications are up-to-date and are subject to continuous safety assessments by our project manager
