Site Safety and Risk Assessment for Tower Operations
Tower operations begin with a written risk assessment before any plant arrives on site. The assessment must identify hazards specific to the location: overhead power lines, buried services, ground bearing capacity, prevailing wind, public and vehicle segregation, and the proximity of other trades working at height. Candidates should understand the hierarchy of control - eliminate, substitute, engineer out, administrate, then PPE as a last resort - and be able to explain why a exclusion zone is an engineered control rather than a sign.
Ground conditions are the classic trap. A mobile tower spreads load through outriggers or wheel jacks; the assessment must confirm the surface can take the point loads, that voids and drains are known, and that spreader plates are sized accordingly. Questions often present a "firm-looking" surface (tarmac over a cellar, newly landscaped ground) and expect you to reject it without survey evidence.
Another trap is confusing a risk assessment with a method statement. The assessment records the significant findings and controls; the method statement sequences the work. Neither replaces a permit to work where the site requires one, and neither is a one-off document - it must be reviewed when conditions change, such as a new crane on the skyline or a change in wind exposure.
Rule of thumb: if you cannot state the control, the person responsible, and the trigger for review, the risk assessment is incomplete. A useful worked example: a tower sited 15 m from a live 11 kV line - the control is not "caution"; it is a defined goalpost barrier at the safe clearance distance plus a banksman briefed on the limit.