Inspectors will continue to swoop on small refurbishment sites during the next few weeks as the safety crackdown continues.

Close to 25% of the 150 small construction sites involving roof work, extensions to domestic properties and properties undergoing refurbishment that have been visited so far have had prohibition notices served on them.

Inspectors will concentrate on how sites are managing roof repair, working at height and manual handling, as well as the welfare facilities for workers.

Andrew Beal, HSE Principal Inspector said: “Finding such poor work practices that we had to issues prohibition notices on nearly one in four sites is unacceptable, especially when many of the incidents are completely avoidable by taking commonsense actions and precautions.”