The Changing of the Seasons

We are now firmly into autumn and swiftly heading towards winter. This means that we can expect different and changeable weather conditions on site.

• Over the summer it now seems more common to have long dry spells with bursts of extremely wet conditions. Whereas autumn and winter now seem generally milder but just as wet as ever.

We are all too familiar with the issues constant wet conditions can bring on site and now is the time to review your risk assessments for sites you have been working over the summer to ensure that they still hold for the changing site conditions.

Diffuse pollution is a common risk when working in forestry when wet conditions prevail. As part of our ongoing improvement plan to manage the risk we launched our diffuse pollution awareness training video last month (see the separate article for an update).

Where you are working on a site and the weather changes you must ask yourself:

• Are slopes that have been workable by machines in the dry, still suitable to be worked in wetter conditions?
• Is the Diffuse Pollution Risk Assessment conducted earlier in the year still valid?
• Are roads and tracks being maintained in a safe usable condition?
• Have some previously dry areas become wet?

Above: Image clearly shows the skid marks left behind when a machine slid down a hill in wet conditions