01.11.2005

Unsafe access costs developer £20,000

Bedfordshire company, Cowlgrove Developers Ltd of Aragon Lodge, 1 The Avenue, Flitwick, was fined a total of £16,000 and order to pay costs of £4,000 at Bedford Magistrates' Court last week, after admitting ten breaches of health and safety regulations by using unsafe methods to gain access to work at height.
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Caught in the act! one man has to stand on scaffold poles to reach the job, no guardrails and improper ladder access all contributed to the £20,000 penalty

A roofing contractor, H. McIntyre & Sons Ltd, of 4A Heron Business Park, Whitfield Avenue, Sundown Park, Luton, the workmens employer, was also charged over £5,000.

Cowlgrove pleaded guilty to all ten charges during a prosecution brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). following an investigation into unsafe ladder access and unsafe scaffolding during the construction of a three-storey block of flats on a brown field site in Linden Road, Bedford.

Cowlgrove Ltd was the client and principal contractor involved and had instructed roofing sub-contractor H. McIntyre & Sons Ltd, of Luton, to install the roof of a bay window. On 17th March 2005, an HSE inspector observed two men working unsafely inside a scaffold, which Cowlgrove Ltd had provided.

The absence of suitable handrails meant there was an inadequately controlled risk of the individuals falling about five metres. The two workmen had gained access using an unsecured, extending ladder. The inspector also saw one of the roofers balance on the scaffold tubes to the right of the bay window with nothing to stop him falling through the scaffold.
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Be warned, HSE inspectors are out with cameras, this cost the developer £20,000!

Cowlgrove Ltd admitted breaching regulations 5(1) and 6(1) of the Construction (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1996, and regulations 10 and 16(1)(a) of the Construction (Design & Management Regulations) 1994, at the Linden Road site.
It also admitted breaching regulations at other sites it controiled.

The £16,000 total fine was made up of ten separate fines imposed for each of the breaches listed above - £2,000 for each breach of the 1996 regulations (two breaches in total = £4,000) and £1,500 for each breach of the 1994 regulations (eight breaches in total = £12,000).

H. McIntyre & Sons Ltd, had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to breaching regulations 5(1) and 6(1) of the Construction (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1996 and was fined £3,000 and ordered to pay £2,275.77 in costs.

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

"Employers are expected to organise and plan health and safety effectively, and take appropriate measures to prevent people falling. Where standards are poor HSE will prosecute those responsible, even if there has been no injury as in this case."