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Journal of Construction Research, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2003) 161–173

c World Scientific Publishing Company

ACCIDENT TRENDS INVOLVING CONSTRUCTION PLANT:

AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS

DAVID J. EDWARDS
Department of Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University,
Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, United Kingdom
drdavidedwards@aol.com
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Received 26 July 2000

Revised 11 December 2001

An investigation into accident trends involving plant operating within the UK construction
industry over the previous decade (1989 to 1999) is presented. The work commences
with a description of plant and equipment purchased within the UK construction sector,
with specific reference to the size of the market and the types of plant item purchased.
Pertinent European plant legislation is briefly reviewed before an analysis of health and
safety statistics is undertaken (obtained from the Health and Safety Executive and the
Department of Environment, Trade and the Regions). Accident rates involving plant are
analyzed not only across the total workforce but also for construction “employees” and
“subcontractors” separately. Principal findings reveal that the plant related accident rate
for employees is four times that for subcontractors. Moreover, despite recent legislation
(such as the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) and the Safe
Use of Lifting Equipment (LOLER)), plant related accident rates across the construction
workforce remain largely unchanged. Hypothesized reasons for this finding are attributed
mainly to a lack of satisfactory practitioner understanding of plant legislation, combined
with a failure by the industry to impose mandatory plant operator training certification.
Guidance is also provided to practitioners on new UK government proposals that aim to
hold companies and individuals “criminally” responsible for health and safety breaches.

Keywords: Construction plant; health and safety; accident rates; legislation.

1. Introduction
The usage of off-highway plant and equipment (including dump trucks, rough ter-
rain forklift trucks, skid steer loaders and tracked hydraulic excavators) provides a
considerable contribution to the UK economy. These versatile machines have been
adapted for use in a myriad of bespoke operations ranging from civil engineering and
construction to opencast mining, forestry, aggregates and the scrap metal industry
(Peurifoy et al., 1996). The impetus for this widespread assimilation has been driven
by a combination of socio-economic pressures, such as increasing labor costs, the
constant demand for greater productivity and changes in industry-specific work-
ing practices (Russell, 1985). As markets expand, UK companies also face fierce
domestic and international competition, placing further emphasis on the need to

161
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162 D. J. Edwards

improve business efficiency. The acquisition (or hire) of plant and equipment is one
of the most important ways that organizations strive to meet these challenges and
maximise productivity, efficiency and hence, profitability (Nunnally, 2000).
However, a major barrier to companies reaping the full rewards from increased
plant deployed is the cost of plant related accidents. The construction industry
has the infamous “grim” record of being habitually quoted as “one of the worst
offenders across all UK industrial sectors” (Druker and White, 1996). In the US,
research reveals that construction accidents alone cost over US$17 billion annually
(Levitt and Samelson, 1993). Similarly, in the UK, a recent government estimate,
stated that the cost of health and safety failure (across all industries) could be as
high as £18 billion every year (UK sterling, at June 2000) (d’ Arcy, 2000). The
estimate also claims that a high proportion of this annual monetary figure can be
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attributed to the construction industry.

Of the various categories of accident occurring (within the UK construction
industry), over 15 deaths and 700 incidents per annum can be attributed to either
contact with moving machinery/material being excavated or to being struck by
moving vehicles (Anon., 1998a). In total, plant and equipment is responsible for
approximately 20% of all accidents occurring on construction sites (Anon., 1997).
Although these figures are high, they fail to neither expose the trend in construction
plant health and safety statistics nor reveal whether European legislation has been
successful in curtailing accident occurrence. The objective of this paper therefore is
to investigate accident trends involving plant operating within the UK construction
industry. In satisfying this objective, the following aims will be achieved:

• To highlight accident rates/trends involving construction plant and equipment

and report upon their significance.
• To determine whether new European legislation is effective in reducing plant
related accidents.
• To highlight proposed legislation which may negatively impact upon practitioners
in the event of a breach to health and safety law.

2. Plant Economics and European Health and Safety Legislation

The utilization of plant and equipment is an integral part of the construction process
(Edwards, 1999). Each year over 20,000 plant items are sold to the UK construction
industry; a market which is valued at £1.2 billion per annum. Each plant item has an
average (mean) life expectancy of ten years and hence, at any given time over 200,000
plant items are working within the UK construction at an approximate value of £6
billion, when taking depreciation into account. Further costs such as consumables,
labor, parts and servicing add at least another £6 billion to this value, giving a total
value of £12 billion for plant in operation. 1 The construction industry itself is worth

1 Figures obtained via private correspondence with Mr Richard Sharp, Economist at JCB.
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Accident Trends Involving Construction Plant 163

£65 billion (Anon., 2000) and hence the value of plant equals to approximately one
fifth of construction’s worth. Other statistics are equally impressive, for example
the industry has a workforce size of 1.4 million (ibid), hence, the ratio of plant to
labour is low at 1:7.
The main manufacturers within the UK (as measured in terms of their pro-
portion of market share) include Caterpillar, JCB, Komatsu and Volvo; albeit a
further 20 manufacturers provide alternative equipment. Between 1980 and 1999,
plant sales grew from just under 10,000 units to just over 20,000, where plant sales
include: articulated dump trucks, backhoe loaders, crawler dozers, crawler excava-
tors, crawler loaders, graders, mini excavators, masted rough terrain fork lift trucks
(RTFL), telescopic RTFL, rigid dump trucks, scrapers, skid steer loaders, wheeled
excavators and wheeled loaders. The predominant items sold in 1999 include the
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mini excavator at just over 5000 units, telescopic RFTL at approximately 4500
units, excavators (wheeled “rubber duck” and tracked “crawler”) at approximately
3500 units and backhoe loaders at just under 3000 units.
In an attempt to curtail accident occurrence emanating from construction plant
usage, the European Union (EU) reviewed individual member state health and
safety legislation (for example the UK’s Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
(HASWA)) (Harris and McCaffer, 1991). The conclusion drawn was that new legis-
lation targeting plant and equipment was required. In 1989, industry confidence in
plant and equipment health and safety management had reached its nadir and the
EU introduced the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER,
ironically pronounced as “poor”) (Anon., 1998b) and later, the Safe Use of Lift-
ing Equipment Regulations (LOLER) (Anon., 1998c). PUWER and LOLER 1998
were incorporated into UK legislation on 5 December 1998 (PUWER 1998 replac-
ing PUWER 1992, its provisions being carried forward into the new regulations and
expanded) (Clarke, 1999). Both of these regulations aim to encompass all equip-
ment throughout industry and are not restricted to construction plant items. In an
attempt to address plant health and safety issues, plant manufacturers have also
introduced new safety features to machine design with innovations such as:

• Zero tail swing for 360 degree excavators, that is, when the excavator slews, its
tail end does not project past the width of the tracks.
• Rear view cameras fitted to dump trucks.
• Convex “high field of visibility” mirrors.
• On board condition monitoring to determine machine condition (Jepson, 2000).

Many of these new initiatives were actively encouraged by the Health and Safety
Executive, although plant manufacturers seized upon the opportunity to publicize
the claim that their machines were the safest to operate and maintain. However, in
1996/97, 11 of the 92 fatal accidents occurring were caused by vehicles: three were
caused by reversing vehicles; three involved dumpers; two were caused by members
of the public in their vehicles; two were caused by vehicles overturning; and one was
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164 D. J. Edwards

caused by an unguarded transmission shaft. With almost 12% of fatal accidents in

that year being directly attributed to vehicles, one must question whether legislation
was providing adequate protection to construction workers.

3. Data Collection and Analysis

In order to conduct an analysis of construction plant related accident incidence, two
fundamental types of information were required. The first type was statistics on the
number of accidents related to plant and equipment usage, and these were collated
from a database held at the Health and Safety Executives, Operations Unit in
Bootle, Merseyside. Of the 20 categories of accident recorded (such as asphyxiation,
exposure to fire, exposure to explosion etc.), two could be directly attributed to
plant and equipment usage. These categories were “contact with moving machinery
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or material being machined” and “struck by moving vehicle”. The key data relating
to the accidents consisted of the category of accident, the year of injury and the
severity of the accident, where the latter is further categorized as fatality, major
injury (operative hospitalised) and absence for over a three-day duration.
The second type of information collected for analysis was the number of opera-
tives working within construction. This was analyzed in conjunction with the acci-
dent frequency data to provide a more accurate and representative view of accident
rates, by apportioning them over the number of operatives. Further manipulation of
the data was undertaken to separate the workforce into employee and subcontractor
categories to allow a more specific analysis of the data to be performed. Employ-
ment figures on employees and the subcontractors (the self-employed) within the
construction sector were obtained from the “Governmental” Department of Envi-
ronment, Transport and the Regions. For this work, subcontractors are defined as
those individuals that execute or supervise the execution of construction work or
arrange for it to be carried out. Alternatively, contractors are those involved in
expenditure on construction operations (Anon., 1999b).
Figure 1 illustrates the number of employees and subcontractors employed within
the UK construction industry as a percentage of total workforce, between 1983 and
1998. Over the first 15 years of the period, the percentage of the total workforce
directly employed declined steadily from 75% in 1983 to 55% in 1997/98, while
the number of subcontractors rose from 25% to 45% over the same period. The
increase in subcontractors employed was as a result of changes affecting the indus-
try in the 1980s and 1990s. New approaches to construction procurement led main
contractors to revert to an increased use of specialist subcontractors. After 1998,
a reversal in this trend is apparent. This can be attributed to an upturn in new
orders and increased workload in the industry, coupled with the use of new pro-
curement methods such as partnering and joint ventures. These new innovations in
contractual arrangements have led to main contractors streamlining the number of
subcontractors employed (Holt et al. 2000). However, the introduction of the Inlands
Revenue’s Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) initiative has also served to reduce
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Accident Trends Involving Construction Plant 165

80

Percentage of total workforce (000's)

70

60

50
Employees
40
Subcontractors
30

20

10

0
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1983
1984
1985
1986/87
1987/88
1988/89
1989/90
1990/91
1991/92
1992/93
1993/94
1994/95
1995/96
1996/97
1997/98
1998/99
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Year

Fig. 1. Employment trends in the UK construction industry.

the subcontract workforce since its introduction on 1 August 1999. The rationale
for the CIS scheme has been to eradicate bogus subcontractors from industry by
insisting that they produce appropriate CIS documentation to the contractor as a
precursor to being employed. However, many subcontractors have chosen not to reg-
ister onto the scheme but rather work directly for the contractor or seek alternative
employment within another industry.

3.1. Employees
The accident trend for employees of the construction industry over the period 1961–
1998 is shown in Fig. 2, displayed as accidents per thousand employees. During the
earlier years of the period (from 1961–1969) the accident rate steadily increased
from 15.07 accidents per thousand employees to 32.45. The overall trend for the
remainder of the period is one of a gradual decline. By 1998, the accident rate had
returned to approximately 15 per thousand employees and marginal annual falls
are apparent throughout most of the 1970’s, late 1980’s and 1990’s. There are two
noticeable exceptions to this. First, in 1980 when accidents peaked at 42.00 per
thousand employees and second, between 1982–1985 when the rate fell sharply to
approximately 2.00. This drop is attributed to a lack of data collated by the HSE
during this period as opposed to a true improvement in accident statistics. Con-
versely, the rise in accident rates witnessed during the years 1980 to 1981 has been
attributed to a large influx of inexperienced operatives who enter the construction
sector during the post-recession boom.
Figure 3 focuses specifically upon the trend in plant related accidents within
the UK construction industry for the decade 1989–1999. Figures for employees,
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166 D. J. Edwards

45

Accidents per employee (000's)_

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1961

1964

1967

1970

1973

1976

1979

1982

1985

1988/89

1991/92

1994/95

1997/98
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Year
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Fig. 2. Employee accident trends in the UK construction industry.

0.9
0.8
Accident rates per (000's)

0.7
0.6
Employee
0.5
Construction operative
0.4
Subcontractor
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1989/90
1990/91
1991/92
1992/93
1993/94
1994/95
1995/96
1996/97
1997/98
1998/99

Year

Fig. 3. Plant related accidents within the UK construction industry.

subcontractors and total workforce (i.e. employees plus subcontractors) are dis-
played separately. It is worth noting that for employees the trend in plant related
accidents remained fairly consistent over the period, with a mean average of 0.7 acci-
dents per thousand employees, whilst the rate for all construction accidents (Fig. 2)
over the same period showed a decline.
A more detailed analysis of the employee plant-related accident rates is presented
in Table 1. This table relates to the two aforementioned categories of plant-related
accidents, i.e. those related to contact with machinery and those to moving vehicles.
Both figures categorize the total number of accidents into three groups: accidents
requiring up to three days off work, major accidents requiring hospitalisation and
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Table 1. Percentage distribution of accident rates.
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Percentage of total employee accidents related to contact with machinery

Year 1987/88 1988/89 1989/90 1990/91 1991/92 1992/93 1993/94 1994/95 1995/96 1996/97 1997/98 1998/99
Percentage fatal 0.28 0.84 0.59 0.82 0.30 0.70 0.75 1.07 0.00 0.00 0.88 0.51
Percentage major 24.29 27.17 24.63 20.60 23.87 25 23.13 22.5 27.66 27.74 36.07 31.63
Percentage over
three days 75.42 71.99 74.78 78.57 75.83 74.29 76.12 76.43 72.34 72.26 63.05 67.86

00040
Percentage of total employee accidents related to moving vehicles
Percentage fatal 5.80 5.43 3.04 2.44 6.15 4.35 4.20 2.97 6.45 4.65 2.04 3.37
Percentage major 35.36 36.69 31.02 30.08 22.15 27.95 28.15 29.37 29.03 40.93 38.37 46.44

Accident Trends Involving Construction Plant

Percentage over
three days 58.84 57.88 65.94 67.48 71.69 67.70 67.65 67.66 64.52 54.42 59.59 50.19
Percentage of total subcontractor accidents related to contact with machinery
Percentage fatal — — 1.66 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.98 0.00 0.00
Percentage major — — 38.33 36.98 32.56 34.48 38.27 25.64 23.61 29.85 40.54 41.38
Percentage over
three days — — 60.00 63.01 67.44 65.52 61.73 74.36 76.39 67.16 59.46 58.62
Percentage of total subcontractor accidents relating to moving vehicles
Percentage fatal — — 2.78 6.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.16 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Percentage major — — 45.83 31.32 57.57 50.00 42.42 44.18 52.00 44.18 52.63 50.00
Percentage over
three days — — 51.39 62.65 42.42 50.00 57.57 54.65 48.00 55.81 47.37 50.00

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168 D. J. Edwards

fatal accidents. For accidents involving contact with machinery, on average (mean),
73.24% of accidents required up to three days off work, 26.20% were classified as
major and only 0.56% were fatal. The corresponding averages for accidents involv-
ing moving vehicles were 62.80, 32.96 and 4.24 respectively. Employees’ accidents
relating to moving vehicles therefore showed a slightly higher trend towards major
accidents and fatalities than those relating to contact with machinery, with a total
average across the two categories of 37.20% as opposed to 27.76%. Neither figure
reveals a significant change in the trend of accident severity (that is, over the three
day, major and fatal categories) over the period under investigation.

3.2. Subcontractors
Referring back to Fig. 3, the trend in total plant related accidents per thousand
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subcontractors, for the period 1989/90 to 1998/99, showed an overall decline. The
accident rate was also considerably lower than that for employees, reducing from
0.20 accidents per thousand subcontractors in 1989/90 to 0.08 in 1998/99, with an
average (mean) of 0.18 for the whole period. Two key points are apparent. First,
a comparison of this trend to that of Fig. 1, reveals that despite an increase in
the subcontractor workforce, the number of plant related accidents per thousand
subcontractors fell considerably. Second, employees were almost four times more
likely when accounting for rounding, to incur an accident than subcontractors (that
is, an average of 0.18 accidents per thousand subcontractors as opposed to 0.73
accidents per thousand employees). This could be attributed to the fact that because
employees work directly for the contractor, they tend to dominate general laboring
duties whereas subcontractors tend to be more specialist trade based. Indeed, HSE
statistics reveal that laborers tend to have one of the poorest health and safety
records across all construction trades. Employees therefore have a higher exposure
to site hazards and thus incur a greater probability of becoming an accident statistic.
Further quantitative research is required to conclude this hypothesis definitively.
As for employees, the subcontractor plant-related accident rates were further
analyzed within the categories of accidents involving contact with machinery and
accidents involving moving vehicles. These analyses are presented in Table 1. Within
both categories, the instances of fatalities were low. For accidents related to contact
with machinery, fatalities were only recorded in two separate years, where the per-
centage of such accidents was 1.66% of the total accidents in 1989/90 and 2.98% in
1996/97. Similarly, only three separate years recorded fatal accidents involving con-
tact with moving vehicles, the highest incidence being in 1990/91 where fatalities
accounted for 6.02% of total accidents.
With respect to the accident severity breakdown for the period as a whole,
for accidents involving contact with machinery, 65.37% on average (mean) were
classified as minor, 34.16% as major and 0.4% as fatal. For accidents involving
moving vehicles the corresponding averages were 51.98%, 47.02% and 1%. Similar
to employee accident trends, the percentage of fatal and major accidents attributed
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Accident Trends Involving Construction Plant 169

to moving vehicles, was greater than that for contact with machinery at 48.02%
and 36.43% of total accidents respectively, although minor accidents formed the
majority in both instances.

3.3. Total workforce

The trend in plant related accidents for all construction operatives (to include both
employees and subcontractors) between 1989 and 1999 is illustrated in Fig. 3. This
figure shows a consistent trend throughout the period, with the mean average being
0.47 accidents per thousand construction operatives and the highest recorded rate
occurring in 1989/90 (i.e. 0.55). It is therefore apparent that the plant related
accident trend for construction operatives has remained consistent and thus, largely
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unchanged, throughout the period under investigation.

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4. Discussion of the Findings

Despite the widespread implementation of new “stringent” regulations and manu-
facturing initiatives, accidents involving construction plant and equipment remain
consistently high and largely unchanged (refer to Fig. 3). It is currently hypothesized
that two factors influence this enigmatic trend. First, preliminary investigations 2 re-
veal that hands-on plant operators, and their immediate line managers, are not fully
conversant with PUWER; indeed in some instances, they are totally unaware of their
existence. It would appear that the doctrine “know safety, no accidents” has not
received universal implementation within the workforce. Second, PUWER fails to
specify that operator training is mandatory but rather states that in the event of an
accident, an operator must be competent (Anon., 1998b). Such an arcane process
is problematic when no base “prescribed” standard of competency exists; instead
subjective, individualistic opinion determines competency.
From the practitioner’s perspective, opinions regarding mandatory certification
are split into those proponents who believe that it is essential and those who suggest
that apprenticeships in combination with final study examinations are the only valid
way forward. As with many clear-cut dichotomies in training, neither the theory
nor the practice is ever simple. Presently there are at least five plant operator card
schemes, although the Certificate of Training Achievement (CTA) (Anon., 1998d)
(which has 280,000 operators on its books) is the largest, and arguably, the most
prominent (Anon., 1999a). A new system for continuous assessment of operators,
which will complement the CTA scheme, is to be achieved through the Intermediate
Construction Certificate (ICC) (Gaved, 1999). The ICC provides site-based training
comprising 20% of the National Vocational Qualification (NVQ). This new system
is proclaimed to “go a long way to addressing the commonly aired fear that a CTA
card recognizes the achievement of training but does not measure an operator’s

2 Derived via extensive investigation into plant management over a five-year study.
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170 D. J. Edwards

competence”. Unfortunately, recent research has identified that 60% of responding

construction employers felt that they were unlikely to introduce NVQ’s because
they were not relevant to their work or that their work is too specialized (Morton,
1999).
The key new feature of the ICC is a theory test which proclaims to measure an
operator’s safety awareness. This is achieved through an examination, which ran-
domly extracts 35 questions from a bank of 500. Five of these questions are described
as machine specific and failure to answer two of these correctly would result in test
failure regardless of performance on the other 30 questions. The new approach is
hailed as a considerable improvement upon the previous CTA card scheme. However,
the mechanical limitation of this test is its subjective presupposition that a plant
operator’s safe operation of their equipment is purely knowledge driven. The ICC
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test is therefore heavily reliant upon operator memory vis-á-vis ability. Knowledge
of safe operation is an essential but not sole requirement since other factors also con-
tribute to hazardous operation, for example: stress, fatigue, perception, intuition,
operator ability and motivation. These additional factors have yet to be considered
in the training of plant operatives and yet they ultimately impact upon safety, not
just for the operator but also for other construction operatives. Furthermore, indus-
try reports issued in June 2000 state that since the introduction of the ICC scheme,
only 15,000 operatives (under 85,000 fewer operatives than predicted) have applied
for the new construction skills certification scheme (CSCS) card (Cronin, 2000).
This certainly represents a major blow for industry initiatives to improve health
and safety.

4.1. Proposed legislation

In May 2000, The UK government released a consultation document entitled: Re-
forming the Law on Involuntary Manslaughter: the Government’s Proposals (Anon.,
2000). The proposal aims to reduce the construction industry’s poor health and
safety record by simplifying the current law on involuntary manslaughter through
the introduction of four new offences, these are: corporate killing; reckless killing;
killing by gross carelessness; and killing when the intention was to cause only minor
injury.
Whilst the proposed legislation fails to specify mandatory plant operative certifi-
cation, it certainly applies increased pressure on company directors and individuals
since the new proposal makes it easier to hold them liable for gross negligence or
gross carelessness in the event of a fatal accident involving their company (Thomp-
son, 2000). This new proposal aims to address apathy to health and safety issues by
forcing companies to develop risk assessment systems and safety procedures (com-
plemented by the appropriate paperwork) with which to promote health and safety
issues to the forefront of construction company activities.
More recently, some of the largest contractors within the UK construction in-
dustry (operating under the Major Contractors Group banner — MCG) have issued
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Accident Trends Involving Construction Plant 171

an operative training policy document. This document covers all trades operating
on site as well as including a section on plant operators. Specifically, the MCG state
that over the next three years, all operators must be certified as being competent
before being employed on any MCG member site. Although such action may not
“totally” indemnify contractors from health and safety prosecutions, it will illustrate
that a reasonable precaution has been taken. It is therefore apparent that in the ab-
sence of strict mandatory competency certification schemes, industrial practitioners
are prepared to enforce self-policing policies to reduce plant related accidents.

5. Conclusion
Construction plant and equipment usage forms an instrumental role in the construc-
tion contractor drive to improve process productivity and company profitability.
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This is exhibited by the fact that over 200,000 plant items, valued at £12 billion,
are present within the industry at any given time. Nevertheless, it would appear
that the desire for short-term profitability has impinged upon the practical and
legislative requirements to maintain a safe working environment for construction
operatives. In 1996/97 alone approximately 12% of construction fatalities could be
attributed to vehicles. Recent government estimates suggest that the cost of health
and safety failure could be as high as £18 billion every year; figures, which are
hardly conducive to increased company profitability.
Analysis of health and safety statistics supplied by the HSE have revealed that
the subcontractor is approximately four times less likely to sustain injury than
construction employees. Moreover, the analysis reveals that accidents for moving
vehicles account for more major and fatal accidents (as a percentage of total acci-
dent rates) than contact with machinery. Perhaps more importantly, over the years
of study (1989/90 to 1998/99) the total rate of accidents per one thousand construc-
tion operatives remained largely unchanged. This is despite the introduction of new
“plant” legislation (e.g. PUWER and LOLER). Reasons hypothesized for such a
poor record includes (i) a general industry-wide lack of understanding of current
European legislation; and (ii) a failure of legislation to impose mandatory certifica-
tion of construction plant operatives. Further research is required to conclude these
hypotheses definitively.
Current operative certification schemes such as the CTA are generally perceived
as an improvement in principle but are often condemned in practice. Typical crit-
icisms include: a lack of a coherent standard of training; poor consistency between
competing training schemes; and a lack of stability, that is, entry requirements
seem to change frequently. To counter apparent deficiencies in current legislation,
new government proposals have been prepared which (if adopted) will facilitate eas-
ier prosecution of both companies and individuals who are in breach of health and
safety guidelines. In turn, industry has reacted appropriately via the introduction of
a self-enforced mandatory certification policy, spearheaded by the MCG. Only time
will tell whether this new initiative will succeed where others have apparently failed.
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172 D. J. Edwards

Acknowledgments
The authors extend their thanks to Mr Gavin Parkinson (at the HSE Operations
Unit) and Mr Neville Price (at the Department of Environment, Transport and the
Regions) for their invaluable contributions to this research.

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Executive, Bootle.
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