Royston hydrogen gigafactory suspensions: CDM and safety lessons for project teams
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on New Civil Engineer
30 Second Briefing
Unions Unite and GMB have condemned contractor behaviour at the Royston hydrogen gigafactory site in Hertfordshire after around 30 construction workers were reportedly suspended for raising health and safety concerns. The workforce had complained about site safety conditions on the large industrial build, which is expected to house hydrogen production and storage plant, before being removed from site. The dispute raises immediate questions for principal contractor and client CDM duties, worker consultation processes, and the robustness of on-site reporting channels for safety-critical issues.
Technical Brief
- Early-phase civil works on hydrogen facilities still need design-stage hazard reviews for future process risks.
- For hydrogen and other high-hazard industrial builds, robust anonymous reporting systems become a critical control.
Our Take
The related 11 December piece on Johnson Matthey’s £80m hydrogen gigafactory in Hertfordshire shows this suspension is occurring on a government-backed flagship clean‑energy project, so any prolonged labour dispute could ripple into wider UK hydrogen industrial policy timelines.
With 575 safety‑tagged pieces in our database, worker treatment issues at high‑profile UK infrastructure sites like Royston are increasingly surfacing alongside technical delivery risks, signalling that labour relations are now a material programme‑level risk for major contractors and clients.
Unite’s involvement at the hydrogen gigafactory mirrors its role in other UK infrastructure disputes in our coverage, suggesting that principal contractors and M&E specialists on complex energy projects should expect more structured union scrutiny of site safety regimes and grievance procedures.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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