14 June 2017 A company director and site foreman have been found guilty of manslaughter after the death of a carpenter who fell through a floor void when the scaffolding board he stepped on snapped. The incident, which took place in September 2014, occurred only a year after a Health …
Figures obtained by the Unite union, via a Freedom of Information request, have revealed that since 2010 there has been a 25% reduction in the number of HSE inspectors. In 2010 there were 1,311 frontline inspectors – by 31 December 2016 that number had reduced to just 980, says the union. Unite …
A girls’ school has been fined for breaching work at height regulations after a teacher fell from a stepladder and was left unconscious. Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that on 9 May 2016 a teacher was conducting rigging and adjustments to spotlights and cabling in the school drama studio when he fell from …
The average cost of health and safety fines in 2016 far outstripped the cost of compliance, according to a new study from health and safety consultants. The research found that businesses paid an average of £115,440 in fines after being found guilty of health and safety breaches in 2016. The …
A solar panel firm has been fined £153,000 after a worker was seriously injured in a fall through a fragile roof light at a private home in Kent. An HSE inspector said that better equipment, training and supervision should have been provided. The 32-year-old worker, from Ashford, fractured his shin …
Company fined after carrying out dangerous window installation work eight-metres above a West End street. A company which manufactured and installed windows has been fined £36,000 after carrying out work in the West End of London with no measures to prevent the workers falling eight metres and after dropping part of a …
ALARP is an abbreviation for “as low as reasonably practicable” and stands at the heart of the way health and safety is managed in the UK. Sections 2 and 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act require employers and the self-employed to ensure the health and safety of …
Failure to plan on multi-storey refurbishment put over 100 lives at risk A Company carrying out construction work to convert an eight storey former Ford office block into 384 flats has been prosecuted for safety failings that put many at risk. On the 26 May 2015, HSE was contacted by the Essex County …
Greg Pearson, from Enfield, trading as ‘Pearsons Scaffolding’, was prosecuted by the HSE after the concerns were raised about scaffolding work being carried out on Tavistock Street in central London. HSE visited the site twice and found the incomplete scaffold to be poorly erected and unsafe work practices were …
A Cheshire building contractor, Phillip Affleck, has been fined for serious health breaches and lack of welfare facilities on a Culcheth building site. Trafford Magistrates’ Court heard that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) received a complaint from a member of the public in May 2014 about the …
