THE family of a decorator who died after falling from a ladder in Huddersfield today backed new safety measures.

Relatives of Trevor Dawson threw their weight behind a new safety blitz aimed at reducing death and injury on building sites.

In a week-long drive from today, inspectors from the Health & Safety Executive will be visiting sites in Kirklees and Wakefield where refurbishment or repair works are being carried out.

It forms part of a month-long national initiative to improve standards in one of Britain’s most dangerous industries.

Trevor’s son Mr Neil Dawson, 42, his younger brother Paul and their mother, Jackie, who still lives in Ravensthorpe, were left devastated after Trevor, then 58, sustained life-changing injuries in the fall.

He had been painting a dormer window during refurbishment work on student accommodation in Ashenhurst, Newsome, back in August 2007.

The father and grandfather suffered severe brain damage and had to go into a nursing home for 24-hour care.

He died in June 2010 as a result of a fit brought on by the head injuries he suffered.

The primary focus of the inspections will be on high-risk activity, such as working at height, and also ‘good order’ – ensuring sites are clean and tidy with clear access routes and good welfare facilities.

They will also assess general site safety to identify potential risks.

Mr Neil Dawson, a machine operative, said: “The loss of dad left a huge hole in all our lives.

“My mother lost her soulmate and she has never got over his loss. My partner and I have five children and two of them never got the chance to meet their granddad.

“It is still a mystery why my father, who was so safety conscious and had been all his working life, was on a ladder that was not up to standard for the work being undertaken on the site.

“He had been a decorator since he was 16 so he was very experienced. He’d talked about retiring and living on the east coast by the sea, but that was all taken away so quickly.

“Any campaign that highlights the dangers faced by workers on building sites gets our support.

“Safety is paramount – it is someone’s life after all. You don’t get a second chance.”

Last year, two workers were killed while working in construction in West Yorkshire and more than 100 major injuries were reported. There were seven deaths and nearly 250 serious injuries across Yorkshire as a whole.

David Stewart, Principal Inspector for Construction for HSE in West and North Yorkshire, said: “This will be the sixth year that we have run the inspection initiative and we anticipate that we will see examples of good practice – where employers are taking the right steps to protect their workers – and bad, where safety comes too far down the list of priorities.

“Poor management of risks in this industry is unacceptable, especially when many of the incidents can be avoided through simple precautions.

“As we have demonstrated in the past, we will take strong action if we find evidence that workers are being unnecessarily put at risk.”

Mr Dawson’s employers at the time were later prosecuted and fined several thousand pounds.