Following and incident at a site when a worker was severely injured a Construction Company has been prosecuted by the HSE.
The worker was carrying out demolition work at a farm building for the company Northern Structures Ltd. when he fell from a height and suffered a fractured spine. South Tyneside Magistrates Court heard how on 20th September 2017 the employee was removing roof sheets from a timer framed farm building when he fell approximately 4 metres through one of the asbestos cement roof sheets onto the ground below. The Investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) showed that while a risk assessment and method statement were in place to remove the roof sheets from below, this method was then changed to remove them from above. It was during this process that the employee fell through the roof sheet.
Northern Structures Ltd. of Amble, Northumberland pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 4(1)(a) and Regulation 4(1)(c) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and was fined £150.000 and £791.70 in costs.
After the hearing the HSE Inspector Loren Wilmot said “Suitable and Sufficient measures should have been in place through the use of alternative access equipment. This would have negated the need for the employee to be on the roof of the building, therefore eliminating the risk of a fall from height through the roof sheets”