Control of Major Accident Hazards

The Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) is something that the Health and safety Executive (HSE) take very seriously; in fact they have a whole section of their website dedicated to the topic. This law is mainly there to make sure that there is sufficient methods to keep people safe and reduce the harm to the surround areas for places which are dangerous or harmful.  It is enforced by the Complementing Authority (Find out more about who these are here), of which one of these is Natural Resources Wales.  

The thing is these are REALLY interesting, as they are site which could be harmful to the surrounding area or even be a hazardous zone on a wider scale. So why bring it up here?  Numerous people have asked for a list of the sites which are covered by COMAH (see HERE, Here, and here), not realising that there can find an area within three miles of their house if they searched the HSE website.  The interesting thing is with this, however, is the amount of things that are covered by it.

Have a look at this one.  Response to fires in an naval oil pipe depot. This is great.  As you can read from the guys request, he really is worried about the locality's risk.  He’s got the response that he was looking for and has helped put him, and his communities mind at rest. What better use of the FoI is there?  Want to set up a hotel for 300 to 500 guest near a COMAH level 1 site?  Here’s the response (Very specific, I know).  Again great advice and a lot of detailed information.

So here’s another one.  The interesting bit is the renewals.  Did you think of it?  Did you think that you could get this information?  Neither did I.  Now this again give a good insight into the world of Health and safety AND shows us that the HSE are being transparent. Not only that, you can see how they are developing their policies too.

So what about the ones that fail?  There is this one about the amount of foam that each site has. Again, this is not a HSE issue. What about this one looking into the assessment of the competent authority?  Again something that was a little bit too specific or wrongly worded.

So this has shown us that there are high level risks in the UK, but that there are measures in place to reduce the harm and deal with it.  It also shows that we can find these reports and assess the risk ourselves. This is great!  Again, that is not the whole of the story.  It makes you think that there is so much information out there and we can get our hands on it.  For example, here is a list of reports that the HSE did into incidents at COMAH sites.  Again a great way for you to see what has happened and what is happening. Good isn't it kids?

PS, have a look at this.