The news that Big Ben will fall silent on Monday for four years while restoration work is carried out on the clock and tower has prompted a backlash from many, saying it is health and safety gone mad.
A Parliament spokesperson said that "constant proximity and prolonged exposure to the chimes would pose a serious risk to the hearing of those working on the scaffolding or in the Tower.”
Writing in the Daily Mail, Richard Littlejohn said: "The Blitz could not silence Big Ben but the Little Hitlers of elf'n'safety have succeeded where the Fuhrer failed.
"Their entirely predictable excuse is that the precaution is necessary to protect the hearing of building workers. Fair enough, but surely issuing noise-cancelling headsets would be sufficient."
Paul Vickers is a Health and Safety Advisor with the ELAS Group: "The work that will be carried out on Big Ben and the Elizabeth Tower is considerable and includes dismantling and repairing the clock itself as well as carrying out any necessary maintenance to the tower. One of the engineers who will be working on the clock said it is the equivalent of a service on a car which has been running non-stop for 116 years. There is work to be done and it's not going to be a quick job. As the clock is going to be totally dismantled it wouldn't be chiming anyway so some of the outcry here is misplaced.
"Health and safety is often seen as an easy scapegoat, as seen in the Daily Mail article but, in reality, some of the claims Mr Littlejohn makes are completely unfounded. There is no health and safety law that bans the use of hearing protection whilst working at height. If communication is an issue for workers, then there is hearing protection out there with built in communication devices, which can be used.
"It has been stated that the bells chime at 118 decibels and that you can feel the vibration when you are stood next to it. To put this in perspective this is equivalent to being stood next to the speakers of a loud rock concert. Where exposure to a loud rock concert for most people is infrequent and only lasts for a couple of hours, the chiming of Big Ben is every 15 minutes and therefore employees will potentially be exposed for a lot of the working day on a daily basis.
"The Control of Noise at Work Regulations require that employers ensure that the risk from the exposure to noise of their employees is either eliminated at source or, where this is not reasonably practicable, reduced to as low a level as is reasonably practicable. Given the level of noise generated by Big Ben and the requirement to remove the noise source it is reasonable that the decision to stop the chiming has been made.”
