After the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspection of the construction site in Bollington, the construction company and its Managing Director have been fined for operating an unsafe construction site during the conversion of the building.
The HSE inspected the site and stopped all the work after the assessment of the building, as the conditions were severely unsafe, putting the workers lives at immediate risk. It was revealed during the inspection, that the site had several issues ranged from work at heights, unprotected missing flooring and failure to provide welfare facilities with running water for employees. Also an insufficiently supported wall found on site, which has been found extremely unsafe, resulted in total of three prohibition and two improvement notices for safety failings.
The investigation of the site found, that the company and the Managing Director did not put in place effective safety management to be able to carry out the conversion of the building. The company pleaded guilty of breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations SI 2007/320, and was fined £42,900 with the costs of £3,781.24. The company's Director after pleading guilty of breaching two charges under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 was fined £40,000 with £3,658.24 costs.
After the hearing, the HSE inspector Deborah Walker said, that the Company and it's Managing Director "completely failed in their duties to protect the workers or members of the public from harm. This was an extremely dangerous site and it is only luck that nobody was injured or even killed. Anyone involved in construction, no matter what size of site or project has to take the health, safety and welfare of their workers seriously. If the unstable wall had collapsed we could now be talking about the tragic death of a worker and it's impact on their family rather than how lucky they are no-one was injured".
