THE Health and Safety Executive is set to make unannounced visits to building sites after revealing 12 construction workers were killed and 1,009 others injured in the North-East and Yorkshire last year.

During a month-long initiative, inspectors will focus on ensuring high-risk activities, such as working with silica and asbestos, are being properly managed.

If unacceptable standards are found, inspectors will take immediate enforcement action, including halting potentially-dangerous activities.

The executive estimates 3,000 people working in construction in the North-East and 7,000 in Yorkshire are suffering from ill-health caused by their work.

As the Health As Well As Safety campaign was being launched on Monday, a 65-year-old woman suffered serious head and chest injuries from scaffolding falling from the HSBC branch in Piercy End, in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire.

The woman was airlifted to James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough at 12.30pm.

The campaign also follows Hartlepool metal-recycling firm Baxketh Ltd being fined £12,000 at Teesside Crown Court last month over the removal of redundant steel work at Tankcleaning Services Ltd in New Road, Billingham, that put workers at risk of exposure to asbestos.

Rob Hirst, the executive's principal inspector of construction, said -industry had made much progress in reducing the number of people killed and injured in its activities, but for every fatal accident, about 100 construction workers die from a work-related cancer.

He added: “A shorter inspection initiative focusing on health risks for construction workers in June saw enforcement action taken at one in six of hundreds of sites visited.

“Time and again we find smaller contractors working on refurbishment and repair work failing to protect their workers through a lack of awareness and poor control of risks.

“This isn’t acceptable - it costs lives, and we will take strong and robust action where we find poor practice and risky behaviour."