Inspectors visited 1759 refurbishment sites during March and checked on how 2145 contractors were complying with health and safety regulations.

On 348 sites sufficiently serious risks were discovered to warrant enforcement action being taken - either stopping work immediately or ordering improvements to be made. Close to five hundred enforcement notices were issued.

However the HSE said that improvements had been witnessed by its inspectors in certain parts of the country since last year - when inspectors had to take enforcement action on 30% of the sites visited.

Phillip White, HSE's new chief inspector of construction, commented:

"This inspection initiative was well publicised and for our inspectors to still find this level of disregard for basic health and safety standards on refurbishment sites is disappointing.

"While any improvement has to be welcomed, our inspectors still found practices so far below the acceptable standard that they felt it necessary to take enforcement action on one in five sites. This is still very worrying."