The Joint Code of Practice for Risk Management of Tunnel Works in the UK was recently published by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and the British Tunnelling Society (BTS).

In discussion since October 2001, the code has been drawn up in an environment of spiralling insurance premiums and increasingly insufficient cover for tunnelling projects.

A draft of the code was published 12 months ago, and although met with scepticism by some in the tunnelling industry, the ABI had insisted that unless risk-management within the sector was re-evaluated, then cover could not be promised – threatening the future of tunnelling projects within the UK.

The objective of the 20-page document is “to promote and secure best practice for the minimisation and management of risks associated with the design and construction of tunnels, caverns, shafts and associated underground structures.”

The fundamental principles include:

  • the code is to operate in parallel with existing British and European standards and statutory and legislative duties and responsibilities
  • hazard and risk identification are to be carried out during each of four identified stages of a project on a project-specific basis
  • risk assessments are to be recorded in risk registers at each stage of a project, identifying the party responsible for the risk
  • risk assessments/registers are to be ‘cascaded’ throughout a project to ensure that parties are aware of identified risks
  • identified risks are to be managed to ensure their reduction to a level ‘as low as reasonably practicable’
  • risk registers are to be ‘live’ documents which are continuously reviewed and available for scrutiny at any time to provide an auditable trail throughout a project
  • insurance should not be considered as a contingency or mitigation measure in risk assessments

    Copies of the code are available from the BTS priced £10 (US$16.60) +£2 (US$3.32) p&p.