An incident at an outlet operated by national retail giant WM Morrison Supermarkets Plc, has resulted in the discovery of a state of neglect with regard to basic health and safety legal requirements. The accident occurred at the Castle Bromwich store in Birmingham on 15 October 2004, where an employee fell from a delivery truck and sustained a head injury. Health and safety officials from Solihull Borough Council visited the site and found major deficiencies in the way risks were controlled. This is the result of a large increase in stock being delivered to the site and storage space being limited.
A scissor lift that was used to safely unload vehicles was completely unusable and blocked by stock. An alternative system was adopted whereby staff would enter the delivery vehicle and use a pallet truck to manoeuvre loads so their fork lift could remove the stock. However, this was being done in almost complete darkness as the automatic perimeter lighting went off at 10:00pm. No assessments into potential health and safety issues had been carried out with regard to increased stock levels and the yard area becoming dangerous because of wet conditions and no lighting. In addition, the accident victim was a shop worker and had no training in warehouse duties and therefore had no personal protective equipment.
Investigating officers concluded that conditions on the site, which had just been converted from a Safeway, at the time of the accident were completely unacceptable and Morrisons pleaded guilty to 9 breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. They were fined £18,000 with £8,156 costs.
