A scaffolding firm which erected two scaffolds outside of a department store on Oxford Street has been fined £10,000 after a catalogue of safety failings.
Workers employed by Darren Baker Scaffolding Limited were captured on CCTV throwing and catching metal fittings over the heads of shoppers. The firm also failed to ensure the structures outside Debenhams were properly configured, braced and tied, which undermined their stability.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) uncovered a series of issues, including:
Oxford Magistrates’ Court heard that although nobody was injured, either from the work or from a collapse or fall, the activity was inherently unsafe. The HSE established that as a result of the failings there was a significant risk that the scaffold could have collapsed.
Darren Baker Scaffolding Limited, of Hertfordshire, was fined a total of £10,000 and ordered to pay a further £706 in costs after pleading guilty to a single breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and four breaches of the Work at Height Regulations SI 2005/735 .
After the hearing HSE inspector Peter Snelgrove commented, "The issues here are two-fold. There were clear concerns with the manner in which the scaffolds were erected, as captured by CCTV. Then there are the failings with the structures themselves, the fact they weren’t built to an approved design and were inadequately tied and braced.
"All scaffolds should be erected in a safe manner, but the risks are magnified when you are working in a busy city centre location with lots of traffic and pedestrians, as was the case here.
"Little thought was given to shoppers as fittings and poles were tossed or passed over their heads, and today’s conviction serves to illustrate the seriousness of the failings we uncovered. Thankfully nobody was injured, but that is the only saving grace."
