Govt ducks Tekapo handrails issue
Rhonda Markby for the Timaru Herald
| 29 Jul 2011
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The Department of Labour will not advise on whether the controversial handrails outside the Church of the Good Shepherd should be removed.
This week a community meeting at Lake Tekapo asked for the rails to be removed, and the Mackenzie Co-operating Parish's parish council agreed to do so as long as it received written confirmation from the Department of Labour that it would not be found liable if someone later fell and was hurt.
A health and safety officer with the DOL told the community meeting that if appropriate signs were erected the handrails would not be necessary.
He said the department was in the process of drafting a letter to the church with its recommendations from the community meeting.
The Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 required hazards in a place of work to be identified and then controlled by eliminating, isolating or minimising the hazard.
The suggestion to the church in relation to the slippery access ways was to spread salt over access areas to prevent ice forming. It might also consider signs to warn people of potentially slippery conditions.
It was up to the church to decide whether to take out the handrails, and the department would not be advising on that, the DOL officer said.
The rails were installed after the church appointed its own health and safety officer who established there had been falls at the church.
Following the parish council meeting this week, the interim priest in charge, the Rev Canon Chris Rodgers, said the parish council felt they had agreed to the rails going in only because they were concerned for the safety of visitors to the church.
"On the assurance of the (DOL's) health and safety officer that they were an unnecessary precaution, and because the people of Lake Tekapo do not want them, the parish council would remove the handrails once this assurance was received in writing."
It wanted the assurance in writing because it felt the understanding of "dangerous" or "safe" was opinion not fact.
"The act is administered by over 14 different health and safety officers so there will always be quite a variety of opinions of what is safe or not," Mr Rodgers said.
The Tekapo community has been up in arms since rails went in several weeks ago.
The rails have variously been described as an insult to the church, an architectural and environmental disaster and looking like cow bails.
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