The Advisory Committee for Roof Safety (ACR) has celebrated its 50th meeting anniversary.
The ACR was established in 1998 after the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) released HSG 33 in the late 1980s, which required all roofing materials to be non-fragile. However, at the time there was no definitive measure of what non-fragility meant, and most industrial roofs were covered with asbestos cement sheeting together with GRP rooflights and were stated by the manufacturers to be “fragile”.
Discussions were held with the HSE to advise the organisation that these products could be made stronger if an industry standard was introduced for manufacturers to work towards.
This lead to the official forming of the ACR and the publication of their first document ACR(M) 001:1998 Test for Fragility of Roofing Assemblies.
Today the ACR is made up of representatives from 11 trade associations and organisations involved in roofing, as well as the HSE, and is chaired by Graham Willmott, who also chairs the BSIF Height Safety Group.
The ACR’s role is to produce free publications about safe working practices on both fragile and non-fragile surfaces and other roof safety issues, as well as a wide range of other topics. ACR says its publications are widely used in health and safety cases to explain to the Courts how work on roofs should be carried out.
