Just about any manufacturing business, and many other types of company, will require warehousing or other storage space of one sort or another. Large or small, managing that space comes with risks – and they may not be in places you’ve anticipated. As a business owner, you have a legal duty to protect your employees and the public from harm, to the extent that this is possible. Key to keeping safe is good risk assessment, which will identify:

• Where the potential dangers lie
• Who is at risk, and
• What you might do to mitigate the problem

Warehouse safety

All things being equal, comparatively few accidents happen in warehouses. Far more problems occur in manufacturing and transporting goods than in their storage – perhaps because the purpose of storage is simply to keep things in one place until they are needed. Nevertheless, every year thousands of warehouse accidents are recorded, ranging from relatively minor through to serious injury.