IN THE COURTS
£750,000 FINE FOR ‘RECKLESS’
ASBESTOS FAILURE Some 200 workers were put at risk to the exposure of asbestos during the early demolition phase of a project, resulting in a £750,000 fine for a construction firm.
The HSE carried out two investigations of working practices at a site in 2013 and 2014 while Barroerock Construction Limited were converting a former nine-storey office building into flats in Ashford, Kent, which was known to contain asbestos.
Canterbury Crown Court heard that the first investigation arose from a routine inspection during one of HSE’s refurbishment campaigns. The Court was told that while a refurbishment and demolition (R&D) survey had been carried out the company had failed to act upon it. This resulted in up to 40 workers being exposed to asbestos.
The second investigation culminated in a visit to the site in June 2014 following complaints being made about the health and safety practices there. It was found that despite engaging a licensed asbestos contractor to remove the remaining asbestos materials, dangerous practices were continuing. The company was unable to provide documentation to show that asbestos materials identified in the survey had been correctly removed. When the work on site was halted for the second time about 160 people were working inside the building.
It was found in both HSE investigations that these incidents could have been prevented if Barroerock ensured they had effective management controls in place to avoid the risk of exposure to asbestos.
Barroerock, who had pleaded guilty to two offences of breaching Regulation 22 (1) (a) of the Construction Design and Management Regulations 2007 at an earlier hearing, were fined £750,000 and ordered to pay costs of £14,874.68.
“The company’s failings in this case has put many workers at risk to the
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HSE FINDS COMPANY ‘FAILED
TO IDENTIFY RISKS’ A Fife-based construction company has been fined for ‘failing to identify risks’ after a worker had to be dug out of a trench that collapsed onto him.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard the 43-year-old employee of Wallace Roofing and Building Limited suffered a broken shoulder and collarbone as well as punctures to both of his lungs and fractures to all but two of his ribs.
Emergency services helped the rescue operation following the incident in September 2011 at a house renovation in Falkland.
A trench was being dug with an excavator to help connect the drainage system of the old property with a new extension. When the workers came across a boulder preventing them from further digging, the excavator was used to try and move the rock. The injured man, who was in the trench laying the new piping, was trying to help guide the excavator. During this operation one of the trench walls, nine feet deep, subsided, burying the worker under the dislodged earth.
exposure of asbestos”, commented HSE inspector Melvyn Stancliffe.
“It was clear there was an endemic failure to effectively manage the construction work on the site in a way that ensured that asbestos materials
Workers immediately started digging the soil away from the man’s head to allow him to breathe. He remained partially buried in the trench until the emergency services arrived and dug him free. He remained in hospital for almost three weeks.
A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that the trench had not been supported or ‘stepped back’, to control the risk of the trench collapsing. Inspectors also found that nobody had formal health and safety training for managing a construction site and that work involving the excavated trench had not been risk assessed.
Wallace Roofing and Building Limited, of Star, Glenrothes, Fife, was fined £14,000.
Speaking after sentence, HSE Inspector Ritchie McCrae said: “The risks associated with collapsing excavation walls are well known, as are the necessary control measures, which could easily have been employed. On this occasion, the company failed to identify the risk and consequently there was a total absence of any control measure, which would have prevented this incident from occurring. The injured worker sustained serious, permanent injury and is extremely lucky to still be alive.”
www.hse.gov.uk/construction
were not disturbed until removed under appropriate conditions. Failing to prevent the breathing in of asbestos fibres on the site is reckless”, he added.
www.hse.gov.uk
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