{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/work-at-height-regulations-2005/regulation-2",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/work-at-height-regulations-2005/regulation-2.json",
  "legislation": "uksi/2005/735",
  "legislation_title": "The Work at Height Regulations 2005",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/work-at-height-regulations-2005",
  "path": "regulation/2",
  "kind": "regulation",
  "number": "2",
  "heading": "Interpretation",
  "text": "(1) In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires—\n“the 1974 Act” means the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974;\n“access” and “egress” include ascent and descent;\n“construction work” has the meaning assigned to it by regulation 2(1) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015;\n“fragile surface” means a surface which would be liable to fail if any reasonably foreseeable loading were to be applied to it;\n“ladder” includes a fixed ladder and a stepladder;\n“line” includes rope, chain or webbing;\n“the Management Regulations” means the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 ;\n“personal fall protection system” means—\n(a)a fall prevention, work restraint, work positioning, fall arrest or rescue system, other than a system in which the only safeguards are collective safeguards; or\n(b)rope access and positioning techniques;\n“suitable” means suitable in any respect which it is reasonably foreseeable will affect the safety of any person;\n“work at height” means—\n(a)work in any place, including a place at or below ground level;\n(b)obtaining access to or egress from such place while at work, except by a staircase in a permanent workplace,\nwhere, if measures required by these Regulations were not taken, a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury;\n“work equipment” means any machinery, appliance, apparatus, tool or installation for use at work (whether exclusively or not) and includes anything to which regulation 8 and Schedules 2 to 6 apply;\n“working platform”—\n(a)means any platform used as a place of work or as a means of access to or egress from a place of work;\n(b)includes any scaffold, suspended scaffold, cradle, mobile platform, trestle, gangway, gantry and stairway which is so used.\n(2) Any reference in these Regulations to the keeping of a report or copy of a report or plan shall include reference to its being kept in a form—\n(a) in which it is capable of being reproduced as a printed copy when required;\n(b) which is secure from loss or unauthorised interference.",
  "extent": "E+W+S",
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [
    {
      "type": "F",
      "label": "F1",
      "text": "Words in reg. 2(1) substituted (6.4.2007) by The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 (S.I. 2007/320), reg. 1, Sch. 5 (with reg. 3)"
    },
    {
      "type": "F",
      "label": "F2",
      "text": "Word in reg. 2(1) substituted (6.4.2015) by The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (S.I. 2015/51), reg. 1, Sch. 5 (with reg. 3, Sch. 4)"
    },
    {
      "type": "M",
      "label": "M1",
      "text": "S.I. 1999/3242, to which there are amendments not relevant to these Regulations."
    }
  ],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/735/regulation/2",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T05:03:31.777165+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}