ABSTRACT
The consideration of health and safety aspects at the design and planning stages of new mining or any other project is vitally important in order to ensure that health and safety are built in the master plan. All projects should have detailed safety plans of studies and activities from the earliest concept stage. The elements of the safety plan must be interactive with the development of the design, and safety must not be considered as a “bolt on extra” at the end of the design. It is therefore essential that all those involved with the design or preferably those carrying out the feasibility study of the project posses satisfactory knowledge and training in such matters, so as to ensure that relevant legislative and technical factors appertaining to health and safety are taken into account. The paper refers to these matters and presents a recent case study from the UK where British Coal as an ongoing concern successfully managed to integrate safety and risk management issues with any other activities such as production, financial matters, etc. New Risk Management techniques have been introduced, which involve risk identification, evaluation and control. The improvement has been brought about not only by safe engineering design but also due to the changing of the management of safety.
