17.09.2005

First Fines handed out under Work at height Rules

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has successfully prosecuted a company for breaching the new Work at Height Regulations (WAHR) 2005, after an inspector caught a company working on a roof with ladders in a dangerous manner without having carried out any form of risk assessment.

Michael Mills, trading as MB Mills General Contractors, of Cambridge, was fined a total of £3,000 plus costs of £3,517, at Bedford Magistrates Court, on Thursday 15 September 2005.

On 13 April 2005, seven days after the regulations came into force, three employees of Michael Mills arrived at a site to salvage tiles from a building prior to demolition. The employees used an unsecured ladder to access a pitched roof and started to strip the roof even though no risk assessment had been undertaken and no provision had been made for them to work safely at height.

No lifts or scaffold had been provided and roof ladders were not in use. The employees made holes in the close boarding to use as footholds.

Speaking after the case, HSE investigating inspector Stephen Hartley said:

"Employers are expected to plan work at height carefully and take appropriate measures to prevent falls. Where standards are poor the HSE will prosecute those responsible, even if there has been no injury as in this case."

Michael Mills pleaded guilty to breaching sections 4(1), 5 and 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.

The key aspects of the Regulations are:

1. Section 4(1) of the WAHR state: every employer shall ensure that work At height is properly planned; appropriately supervised; and carried out in a manner which is so far as is reasonably practicable safe.

2. Section 5 of the WAHR states: Every employer shall ensure that no person engages in any activity, including organisation, planning and supervision, in relation to work at height or use equipment for such work, unless he is competent to do so or.

3. Section 6(3) of the WAHR states: where work is carried out at height, every employer shall take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury.