The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued a warning to demolition companies on the importance of finding out as much information as possible about the buildings or structures that they are about to demolish. Central Demolition Limited of Bonnyside Road, Bonnyridge were fined £50,000 at Edinburgh Sheriff Court after pleading guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, following the death of worker on 22 August 2004. The man in question was killed when a large section of a silo building at the former Caledonia Mill which was being demolished fell on top of him without warning while he was operating an excavator on the site.
HSE inspector Murray Provan commented, "This accident was entirely foreseeable. The demolition company had not carried out a survey of Caledonia Mill as they had been contracted to do and as health and safety legislation and the British Standard for Demolition strongly suggests should be done in order to identify structural hazards to prevent premature collapse."
It emerged that the company had relied entirely on drawings prepared around 1989 and had made no efforts to search archives or pursue other lines of enquiry to find out as much as possible about the large silo building at the Mill. The building itself was actually two separate structures, built at different times. If they had sought the advice of a competent structural engineer they would have been able to spot the differences between the structures and may have been able to prevent the collapse of the last section of the newer building.
