Sports Court Construction SWMS

For civil and landscape contractors building sports courts. It follows the job from service location and earthworks through the sub-base, concrete or asphalt base, acrylic and synthetic surfacing, court fencing and light pole installation to clean-up and handover.

Sports court construction is construction work, so a SWMS is required by law (WHS Regulation s 299). Item 14, powered mobile plant, is pre-ticked because plant moves in the work area on every court job. Also tick the fall of more than 2 m item where work is done from height, the shaft or trench deeper than 1.5 m item where footings or drains are dug that deep, and the energised electrical installations item where work is done near live parts.

New to SWMS? Read What Is A Safe Work Method Statement?

What Is Covered In Our Sports Court Construction SWMS?

After the standard pre-start checks, the job steps run from “Set up the site and locate services” to “Finish, clean up and hand over”. The hazards and controls include:

• Striking underground services
• Contact with overhead power lines
• Powered mobile plant and trucks near workers
• Trench and excavation collapse
• Burns from hot asphalt
• Wet concrete burns
• Silica dust from saw cutting
• Coating chemicals and spray overspray
• Falls and lifting when fixing fences and light poles
• Heat stress and sun exposure

High Risk Construction Work

These high risk construction work items (WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) s 291) are already ticked because they are part of this work. Tick any others that apply to your job:

• Is carried out in an area at a workplace in which there is any movement of powered mobile plant

Licences, Training and Competency

• General construction induction training card (white card)
• High risk work licence for the crane used to lift light poles where Schedule 3 requires one (slewing mobile crane of any capacity, non-slewing mobile crane over 3 t, vehicle loading crane of 10 metre tonnes or more), and a dogging or rigging licence for slinging and for directing the operator when the load is out of view (the vehicle loading crane licence includes slinging for that crane)
• High risk work licence for the boom-type elevating work platform class where a boom of 11 m or more is used
• Licensed electrical worker to connect luminaires and wiring (Electrical Safety Act 2002 s 55)
• Competent plant operators for the excavator, rollers, paver and trucks
• Site induction

Legislation and Codes of Practice Referenced

• Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld)
• Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld)
• Electrical Safety Act 2002 (Qld)
• Electrical Safety Regulation 2026 (Qld): exclusion zones (ss 10 to 13 and schedule 2)
• Managing Risks of Plant in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• Excavation Work Code of Practice 2021
• Formwork Code of Practice 2016
• Concrete Pumping Code of Practice 2019
• Managing respirable crystalline silica dust exposure in construction and manufacturing of construction elements Code of Practice 2022
• Spray Painting and Powder Coating Code of Practice 2021
• Managing Risks of Hazardous Chemicals in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice 2021
• Managing Noise and Preventing Hearing Loss at Work Code of Practice 2021
• Managing the Risk of Falls at Workplaces Code of Practice 2021
• Electrical Safety Code of Practice 2020 – Working near overhead and underground electric lines

What You Get

• An editable Microsoft Word document (14 A4 landscape pages). Type your business, client and job details once and they fill in on every page, with a space for your logo
• 9 job steps for this work, each with its hazards, controls, initial and residual risk scores and the person responsible
• PPE listed for this job: hard hat and high-visibility clothing; safety boots; gloves for the task: waterproof, heat resistant or cut resistant; safety glasses and eye protection for coatings
• Emergency arrangements for: overhead line contact with plant, burns from hot asphalt and heat illness
• Plus the parts every Work Safety QLD SWMS shares, from the s 291 checklist to the worker sign-on sheet (see the layout in our free SWMS template)

Adjust it for your site, plant and crew, and talk it through with your workers before work starts. Please make sure you read our Disclaimer before downloading this SWMS.

Checked against the Queensland laws and codes of practice listed above. Last reviewed November 2026.