Bill McKay, principal construction inspector for the Health and Safety Executive, continues to look at the potential risks of building sites

Scaffolds look a bit like climbing frames and children are tempted to use them for that purpose, without realising the dangers.

After all, workers use them safely, why, therefore, cannot children? But climbing up scaffolds or running and playing on them is not safe.

Children who are not used to climbing ladders can so easily fall off.

Often attached to scaffolds are items of lifting plant and there may be openings used to load materials.

These may be obvious hazards to the trained, but not to the unwary child.

Children will also not appreciate that they could be venturing on to a scaffold that may be under construction, incomplete and so not at all safe.

Bombing materials off high-level scaffolds may seem to be fun to a child, but the practice is dangerous indeed for a person who may be below. Anyone tempted to use a rubbish chute as a slide risks serious injury.

Having climbed over a two- metre-high fence round a site, a ten-year-old girl played on a scaffold.

She fell five metres from an edge and received multiple injuries.

A ten-year-old boy was being raised up on to a scaffold by his friends pulling on a rope attached to a lifting pulley wheel. The lifting rope slipped and he fell ten metres, seriously injuring his legs.

* Although it is wrong to do so, builders are not averse to keeping chemicals in drinks bottles.

Children may be led to believe that the bottles contain drinks, only to discover that they are filled with a dangerous chemical. By that time it is too late.

Drinking or spilling acid can cause serious injury.

When containers of chemicals get wet or dirty, their hazard warning labels are often obscured, or they fall off.

With no indication of what is inside, curious children may try to find out - often to their cost.

Glue sniffing and solvent abuse are obvious risks, and in sites where such materials are in use, it is most important that they are locked away securely, rather than being left around to tempt children.

The same applies to cylinder gases used for welding and flame cutting.