Before the first
boot hits
the ground.
A free site start-up checklist: 21 checks in plain English, each with the regulation behind it. What has to be in place before anyone starts work, not the week after.
Published · Last reviewed
What has to exist
before work starts.
Almost everything expensive about a project is decided in the fortnight before anybody turns up. CDM 2015 is explicit that the construction phase plan must exist before the construction phase begins and that welfare must be in place from day one, not from the first delivery. This is the list of what has to be true on the morning of week one.
The hard deadlines, who holds them, and what starting without them costs+
- The hard ones
- Three things are unambiguously before-you-start, not soon-after: the construction phase plan (Reg 12(1)), welfare facilities (Reg 13(4)(c) and Sch 2), and the F10 where the job is notifiable (Reg 6). Starting without them is a breach on day one, whatever happens afterwards.
- When F10 is needed
- Construction work scheduled to last longer than 30 working days with more than 20 workers on site simultaneously at any point, or to exceed 500 person days. The client gives the notice and it is displayed on site. Notification changes nobody's duties.
- Services are the killer
- Striking a live service is one of the most common causes of serious injury on UK sites. HSG47 is the guidance: drawings, then a scan, then trial holes, then safe digging practice. Drawings on their own have never been enough.
- Proportionate, not thick
- A construction phase plan for a two-week domestic job is a few pages. The test in Reg 12 is that it sets out the health and safety arrangements, site rules and any significant risks. A 90-page template nobody reads fails that test as surely as no plan at all.
- What this checklist covers
- 21 checks across three sections: 7 before you are on site at all, 8 setting the site up, 6 in the first week. Each entry names the regulation it comes from, or says plainly where it is good practice.
Before you mobilise.
Appointments, notification and the plan. None of this can be done from site.
Setting the site up.
The physical setup. Get it wrong now and you live with it for the whole job.
The first week.
What turns a set-up site into a managed one.
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A starting point for your own review, not legal advice. Always check against the current regulations and HSE guidance. Put your own company in the field above and the PDF carries your name instead of ours. Ticks, notes and site details stay in your browser. Nothing is sent to us.
Or use it as a printable template.
Download the blank site start-up checklist as a PDF, or work through the list above on screen and save that instead, dated and carrying the site, the person who prepared it and the score out of 21. Nothing is gated: no email address to hand over, no account to create, no trial to start.
- A blank template
- The PDF above carries all 21 checks, each with the regulation it comes from and a ruled line for the evidence, the owner and the date. Print it and fill it in on site.
- Or a completed record
- Work through it on screen first and Save as PDF produces a dated record of what was in place and what was not, with your evidence notes typed against each check.
- Your ticks stay in your browser
- Ticks, notes and site details are held on this device only. Nothing is sent to us, so you can close the tab and pick it up tomorrow on the same machine.
- Your name on it, not ours
- Put your company in the field above and the downloaded PDF carries your letterhead instead of Unibuild's. It is free: a sheet you hand to a client should be able to have your name on it.
Worth knowing. A checklist filled in once, the week of an audit, is a snapshot. The evidence behind it is either generated as the work runs or reconstructed under pressure, and that is the difference between a template and a record. It is also what the health and safety module is for.
The same start-up,
read by role.
These are the same checks above, grouped by whoever normally answers for them.
Client
Items 1, 2 and 3 of the pre-mobilisation section. Appointments in writing, pre-construction information and the F10 are yours and cannot be delegated by silence.
Principal designer
Pre-construction information, design risk and opening the health and safety file: items 2 and 5 before mobilisation, and item 6 of the first week.
Principal contractor
The plan, the whole setting-up section and the inspection regime. If the site is not fit to work on in week one, it is your name on it.
Project manager
The commercial half: insurance, appointments, licences, neighbours and the programme that decides whether welfare is there before the groundworkers are.
Site manager
The first-week section. Induction, RAMS briefings and the first emergency test are what convert a compound into a managed site.
Temporary works coordinator
Item 4 of the first week, and it is a gate not a formality: nothing gets loaded until the design is checked and signed.
You shouldn't need
this checklist.
On the platform the appointments, insurances, surveys and the plan sit against the project record from the day it is created, so week one is a reading exercise rather than a scramble.
What people ask before
they use the checklist.
The questions that come up most often around a site start-up checklist, answered against the regulations rather than around them.
When does the construction phase plan have to be ready?+
Does welfare have to be there on day one?+
When is a project notifiable to the HSE?+
Do we need an asbestos survey before we start?+
Are utility drawings enough to locate services?+
Is this the same as a pre-construction checklist?+
Is this checklist free, and do I have to sign up?+
Can I put my own company name on the PDF?+
Does Unibuild do this for me?+
Before the next
one starts.
Run this over the project you are mobilising and see what is programmed for week three that should be there in week one.